This Thing Called Family
by Blacknbluesiren
Summary: A series of oneshots of varying lengths, covering the lives of the children of our favorite Leaf and Sand nin. NEW: Family is the synonym for Love. Konoha's own hyperactive blond ninja ponders the meaning of family, love, and being Hokage one early mornin
1. A Different Kind of Natural

Naturally Unnatural

If you had told a fifteen year old Temari that one day she would be a mother, she probably would have laughed at you, and then hit you with her fan. She was a shinobi, a defender of her village and country. She was also the oldest of her three siblings, and they alone were enough to take care of. She had no time for children, no time for motherhood.

Of course, if you told her that both of her brothers would one day be fathers, she probably would not have believed that either.

She ponders this thought as she leans on the roof railing of the compound. The evening is unnaturally warm and all around the village, she can see windows open just a bit—enough to let in the warm air, but not too much sand. She looks around and considers Suna, her home and her responsibility. It is not easy to live in the desert; the days are scorching and the nights are freezing (usually). For adults like herself, living is difficult. For a newborn, it is near impossible.

"We have our own natural selection," she once heard Kankuro explain it. "Only strong babies survive their first year in the desert. That's how our shinobi are so strong."

Their children, then, must be the three strongest to ever set foot on the sand.

Cain came first, a complete surprise to all three Subaku siblings. He was Temari's, and it was fitting that the oldest should end up a parent first, regardless of how panicked that oldest was over the responsibility. The father had died, felled in battle, soon after conception. She had liked that man, and—after some careful consideration and many looooong talks with her brothers—decided that she liked him enough to want to bring the child into the world. Into her world.

It was no picnic, that was for certain. Cain came early, nearly a month early. The harsh wind and sand made it difficult for him to breathe, and the Healers all shook their heads and murmured what a shame it was that the child, who looked so much like his mother even at birth, would probably not survive.

The unfortunate soul who said this to the mother's face ended up on the business end of said mother's fist. Temari was blown away by the surge she felt in her chest. So _this _is what a mother's love was meant to be. Fierce, and unconditional. All things seemed to pale in comparison to the survival of her son.

And survive he did. Temari tilts her head back, listening to the sounds from the room behind her. He was asleep, of course, it is nearly midnight, but even in sleep Cain is active and energetic. She can hear him rolling back and forth, his blond hair plastered with sweat and his face curious even in sleep. He already shows signs of possessing his mother's gift of harnessing the wind—soon, she is going to have to find a suitable practice fan for him. Her old one is definitely going to be too small for her swiftly growing four year old.

There is a soft thump and Temari turns in time to see a small, dark-haired figure flash around the corner, footsteps whispering across the hall. She smiles and rolls her eyes.

"Sonya, to bed. The house will not collapse while you sleep, so you can relax."

"Okay," is the stage-whispered response, the feet fading away back down the hall. Temari stifles a laugh. Kankuro is on a mission, so naturally Sonya cannot sleep easily. And Sonya-the-insomniac is equal to Sonya-the-really-loud-night-patrol. What did anyone expect, though? She is Kankuro's girl.

_That_ had been a surprise if ever there was one. Temari still remembers the day Gaara had raced into the kitchen (which was ridiculously bizarre in and of itself. Gaara did not race anywhere. Ever.) and said, "there's a baby on the front step", in a tone that suggested he thought it was actually a bomb that was going to go off any second. Kankuro was behind him, his eyes the size of dinner plates and his face a chalky white that made the purple kabuki paint stand out like neon.

"And apparently," Gaara continued, sounding slightly calmer, "it's nii-san's."

"Hell. No." was Kankuro's immediate response. He sounded like he was choking.

But hell yes, Sonya was every inch a Subaku, and Kankuro's no less—the woman who had left the child (a brief fling from a neighboring village) detailed in a brief letter exactly how long she had been pregnant (the baby had been born on time) which meant there was really no weasling out of the responsibility.

"Look at it this way," Temari had said between laughs, as her brother stared down at the baby before him as if it was covered in exploding tags. "The chick must really have liked you if she was willing to carry her full term, right?"

Amazingly, neither child nor father died in the weeks that followed. Once he got his head around the fact that, yes, this dark haired, green-eyed bundle was his, Kankuro proved to be a startlingly _good_ father. Sonya was always clean, well-fed, and Temari was fairly certain she had never once heard that baby cry from some sort of discomfort. It became a private joke between the three of them that, instead of caring puppets slung over his back, Kankuro now carried Sonya. The little girl went everywhere with her father, and watched with fascination while he worked on his puppets. They weren't sure if she had the gift of puppetry yet, but Temari didn't doubt it for a second. She was like her father in personality, too—loud, brash, and quite fearless. She actually reminded Temari a bit of herself when she was young.

The breeze shifts, and a definite chill has started to settle over Suna, so Temari heads back inside, securing the door behind her. A quick peek into Cain's room shows her a lump snoozing peacefully under a sheet, all other blankets kicked to the floor. She smiles and continues down the hall. Not surprisingly, Sonya's room is empty. The girl has an annoying habit (her father's habit, of course) of following only half of directions, and usually only in a way that satisfies what she feels is important. Temari arrives at the end of the hallway and opens a door. A shaft of light falls across a crib, where a red headed infant slumbers on his stomach. Underneath the crib, wrapped up in a blanket pulled from her own bed, is Sonya. Temari leans against the doorframe and studies the scene silently.

Jax was just a year old a few months ago, the third surprise the Subaku siblings got in such a short time. The youngest of the three, he had been the biggest and the smallest bit of startling news to Temari. Biggest because, well, it was _Gaara_ who was going to be a father. Gaara, who was Kazekage, who still barely ever spoke, barely ever slept, and still had that quality of not-completely-normal about him (of course, none of them are normal, but this is comparatively speaking). Smallest, though, because Gaara _had_ been quietly seeing someone for nearly a year (nice girl, Temari remembers. Quiet but independent. A streak of the fearless in her). The woman died, unfortunately, in childbirth. That alone was enough to set Temari's teeth on edge with worry—after all, their mother had died giving birth to Gaara.

Worse, Gaara had been afraid of his infant son. Not afraid in the "this-kid-is-possessed-and-going-to-kill-me-in-my-sleep" sort of way, but in the "I'm-going-to-hurt-the-very-tiny-baby-if-I-touch-it" sort of way. Temari remembers the hours he used to spend, just staring at the little boy—who already vividly resembled him with pale skin and red hair. She remembers the slightly helpless look on his normally carefully neutral face. She had worried. A lot. Interference was a definite no—Gaara had to work this one out on his own—but she feared the lack of contact would cause a divide like it had between her father and she and her siblings. She did not know what to do at the time.

Temari focuses on Sonya, and her lips quirk into a smile. When Sonya had arrived on the doorstep Cain—two years old at the time—accepted her only after realizing that all his demands to make her "go away" were not going to be met. He grudgingly deigned that she was "alright" and could stay only if she remembered that he was the boss.

When Jax arrived, and Gaara freaked about inadequate parenting skills (Temari snorts at the thought. None of them are adequate. They just got lucky these children are so damn resilient), Sonya—barely three years old herself—seemed to think that some god placed the baby on this earth solely so she could care for him, and Jax took to her like a desert rose to the rainy season. She slept under his crib for the first week and a half, scared witless that he was going to die or disappear in the night if she did not watch him _constantly_ (a fear that was definitely not helped by the fact that Gaara did the exact same damn thing), and she stayed close to his side as long and as often as she possibly could. No one was allowed to hold "her" baby unless she was standing right there by them, watching with hawk-like severity. No one, that is, except Gaara. Whenever he went near his son, Sonya took off in the other direction, and watched from a safe distance. If Gaara did not do what she wanted (pick up the baby, feed him, look after him, whatever) she would stomp back over, make her demands known, and scamper away again. It took several attempts on her part, and then a tumble down the stairs (god was that terrifiying) for Gaara to get over his delusion of his son's fragility. Jax is a mighty little boy, but he needs his father.

It is with that thought in mind that Temari steps away from the nursery, only to bump in to aforementioned father. Gaara raises an eyebrow at her, and then peers into his son's room. He nods.

"He's okay, then?" His voice is uncharacteristically hesitant. Temari nods.

"He's fine. They're all fine."

"Cain asleep?"

"Yep," there's a thump and a muffled mumble from back up the hall. "All evidence to the contrary, of course." The sibling smirk at each other as Cain settles down again.

"And Sonya?"

"Is probably faking it. She was up and walking not even five minutes ago." Temari raises her voice only slightly. "When I come back in five minutes, you better be in your own bed, missy. Your father is going to be home tomorrow and you don't want to be exhausted for that."

They have not gone five steps away from the door when they hear the patter of fleeing footsteps behind them, but when they turn, they see nothing.

"Quick."

"They all are."

"That's good. They'll make good shinobi."

"Of course they will! They're ours, aren't they?"

"Temari…" but he is amused, she can tell.

The desert has its own form of natural selection. Only the fittest survive. By some strange turn of fate, the three most unnatural people in Suna not only survived themselves, but lived to continue that tradition in their own children.

Well, Temari muses as she locks the doors and turns off the lights, they must be doing _something_ right.


	2. This Thing Called Family

AN: Briefly, because I forgot to do this in the first chapter:

I do not own Naruto or any of its characters, titles, etc etc etc. They all belong to whatever creative genius is making oodles of money off them now. I DO, however, own Jax, Sonya, and Cain, and any other characters who may pop up subsequently. I will be sure to let you know when they do.

This Thing Called Family

Until Cain began academy, he and his brother and sister operated under the firm understanding that that was what they were—siblings. After all, that's what siblings were, right? The people you ate with, played with, fought with, got in trouble with, and generally shared all experiences with, right? Cain, the oldest and wisest at seven years old, was certain that this was simply one of the truths of life that could not be shaken—the sky was blue, the sand was yellow, his uncle was Kazekage and Sonya and Jax were his siblings. End of story.

He was very excited to begin at the Academy. He had his training fan (his own, because no _way_ was he going to use his mom's old one. For one thing, it was too small. For another, it was _purple_) and his books. He was going to begin his learning as a shinobi and he could not _wait_. Sonya, of course, was jealous as she should be. She was only six, though, and could not yet begin at the academy—not that she didn't beg to go anyway, of course. Oh, but only if she could take Jax with her.

"Sorry, Sonya," Uncle Gaara had said solemnly, though he looked like he might smile one of his rare smiles. "Four-year-olds are too young for the Academy. Maybe if you go by yourself…"

On second thought, Sonya decided, she did not yet want to go to Academy. Maybe next year.

As Cain put his stuff together and got ready to leave on that first day, he cheerfully gloated about all the things he was going to see and do, and all of the people he was going to meet.

"What time will you get home?" Was all Sonya wanted to know. Cain put his hands on his hips self-importantly.

"I don't _know_, Sonie. I might be busy doing big kid stuff."

"Too busy to play with your sister and brother?" Sonya shot back. Cain rolled his eyes.

"Of _course_ not, but I'm going to do stuff with my new friends, too."

Sonya and Jax shared a glance, and then shrugged.

"Have lotsa stories then, okay?" Jax proposed as compromise. Cain ruffled his fiery hair.

"Tons, man. Bye guys!" And he shot out the door.

The Academy was big, and teeming with kids. Cain felt incredibly small compared to some of them, and he wished (though he would certainly never admit it) that his brother and sister were here with him. After all, it was pretty difficult to feel small and insignificant when you were with the Kazekage's son and the loudest person on the face of the earth. Ah well, next year.

Cain found his classroom with only a few difficulties, and found his seat with fewer. His sensei looked nice—a young chuunin, female, with black hair tied back and smiling blue eyes. When class began, she introduced herself as Tomoyo-sensei. She asked each of the children to stand up and introduce themselves, "so I can get an idea of my new shinobis-in-training!"

It was when his turn came that Cain's world was upended on his head.

"Um, well I'm Subaku Cain. I'm seven, and I have a six year old sister and a four year old bro--"

"Pardon?" Tomoyo-sensei looked confused. Cain looked confused back at her.

"I'm seven."

"Yes, and what else?"

"My sister is six?"

"You have a sister?"

"And a brother. He's four."

Tomoyo-sensei was looking at her attendance sheet.

"You're the son of Subaku Temari, correct?"

"Ye-es," was this a trick question?

"Then who…? Oh!!" And then Tomoyo-sensei was chuckling quietly. "Sorry, Cain, I misunderstood you. You meant your cousins, right? Sonya and Jax?"

BOOM was the sound of everything Cain thought he knew plummeting into the ether.

First of all, what the hell was a cousin? Cain knew it had something to do with family, as most of these weird words did, but what did it have to do with _his_ family? Since when were Sonya and Jax something as far removed as _cousins_? Cousins were distant figures that people talked about living in other villages (or dying in them, if the case may be. They were shinobi, after all). Sonya and Jax were anything but distant.

Needless to say, Cain's first day at the Academy was not his best.

He practically flew home, desperate for the familiarity of his mother and his siblings (his _siblings_ dammit, because they were so_ not_ "cousins"). He burst through the door and skidded into the hallway, a bellow halfway up his throat when he found who he was looking for.

They had been coloring, if the paper and crayons scattered across the floor was any indication, but now Jax was stretched out in the afternoon sunlight, napping on the floor, and Sonya was lying beside him on her stomach, reading. Cain stomped over to them, throwing his bag aside, and dropped down in front of his sister-not-cousin.

"I need to talk to you," he declared, not bothering to lower his voice. Sonya gave him a withering look, but closed her book.

"Okay," she whispered, sitting up. Cain growled and gave Jax a hard poke. The boy woke up with a yelp.

"Hey!"

"BOTH of you," Cain repeated, still at the same volume. The withering look turned into a basilisk glare, but Cain was too distressed to cower from it. Jax sat up and yawned, rubbing his eyes.

"How was 'Cademy?" He asked blearily.

"Horrible," Cain replied bluntly. The other two stared at him, dumbfounded. He definitely had their attention now.

"Why?" Sonya asked tentatively after a moment's silence. Cain blinked furiously, the uncertainty that had plagued him all day needling like a particularly bad gust of sandy wind. Stupid teachers and their stupid comments….

"My sensei said we're not brothers and sister."

His announcement was met with stunned silence.

"Not…brother and sister?" Sonya's voice was a tiny thread, and her eyes were huge. Cain shook his head wordlessly.

Jax burst into tears.

"But I _wanna_ be Cain's brudder! I _wanna!_"

"She said we were cousins," Cain continued miserably over Jax's tears. Sonya blinked a few times, trying to process the impossible information, and her mouth trembled. Cain, personally, thought Jax had the right idea, as the little boy's face began to turn as red as his hair as he got himself properly worked up.

"Let's ask Uncle Gaara." Sonya said abruptly, standing. Jax shut up mid-howl, and Cain jumped.

"We're not supposed--!"

"He said we could go to him if there was ever an emergency. THIS is an emergency." Sonya's voice left no room for argument. She grabbed Jax's wrist in one hand and Cain's in the other and together, the three raced to the Tower, where resided the office of the Kazekage.

Gaara had spent most of the day chained to his desk, putting out diplomatic fires all over the place. There were trade inconsistencies to sort out, annoying noblemen to deal with, and a million other small irritants that were quickly giving the ex-jinchuuriki a mother of a headache. So when the door burst open with no announcement whatsoever, it was with little guilt that Gaara got ready to give the intruder hell.

"_What_ do you--!"

His niece, nephew, and son were standing, panting, before his desk. They looked _terrified_. Jax had clearly been crying, and appeared to be trying to decide if he should start again. Sonya looked as though she may follow suit and Cain just looked upset. Really upset. Dangerously so.

"Can we talk to you?" He asked desperately.

"It's an emergency," Sonya added quickly. Jax was nodding frantically. Gaara sat back in his chair, resisting the urge to rub his temples. He had a lot of work to get done, true, but this was the first time the children had ever utilized the "if it's an emergency" card and arrived unannounced. There really was something wrong.

"Speak," he said finally.

"My sensei said we weren't siblings. Is that true?" Cain blurted out.

Gaara nearly fell out of his chair (which just showed how completely unprepared he was for this) and stared at the boy incredulously.

"Elaborate, please," he ordered, his mind reeling.

Cain recounted his whole story, his arms windmilling as if trying to bat this news—which clearly disturbed all three of them—far away. Gaara's stomach felt as if it were filled with lead. What on earth was he going to say to them? The truth was clearly not what they wanted to hear, but he was not really in the business of lying to anyone, least of all his own flesh and blood.

"…and so she said they weren't my brother and sister, but my _cousins_," Cain spat the last word as if it were a profanity. Three sets of eyes gazed imploringly at Gaara, begging him to make sense of this mess they had been tossed so unceremoniously into.

That teacher was so incredibly dead. And fired.

Now Gaara did rub his temples, trying to stimulate his brain which was wracking itself to pieces for an answer. He thought of his own brother and sister, and how for years it had seemed they were not siblings at all thanks to the distance between them. Not physical distance, no, but emotionally---

Wait a minute.

Gaara looked up at the three children, standing before him in a line, gripping each other's hands like lifelines. They always did that—held hands, that is. That way, Jax had declared one day as he harnessed the older two together, none of them could get "losted" from each other. They stood together now, and Gaara got the feeling that if he told them the blunt facts—that, because their parents were siblings, there was no way _they_ could be siblings as well—all three would indeed be losted from each other. Gaara did _not_ want that.

"Cain," he said finally, focusing on the oldest boy. "Do you know what makes a brother or a sister?"

"No," the boy said meekly.

"Closeness," Gaara told them. "Not like living in the same house, but closeness here." He placed a hand over his heart, and Cain mimicked the move with a frown.

"What does that feel like?"

Gaara resisted the urge to groan. Why were children so damn _inquisitive_?

"It feels…it feels full. Like everything in the world is better because your brother or sister is there. You feel happy and loved. It's safety and freedom rolled together."

The children glanced at each other uncertainly, trying to digest this. Gaara decided to switch tactics.

"Sonya, how do you feel when Cain asks you to play with him?"

Sonya lit up like a candle.

"Great! Really happy!"

"And Jax, how do you feel when you're scared at night, and Sonya comes in your room and tells you stories with her puppets?"

"Good," Jax replied shyly. "Like the monsters can't get me, 'cause Sonie is there to scare them away."

"And Cain," Gaara fixed his most penetrating gaze on his nephew, who did his best to meet that gaze unflinchingly, "when one of the village children knocked Jax off the swing and pulled Sonya's hair, how did you feel?"

"Like I wanted to hurt them. I was gonna. I _did_, actually." Cain's face was stormy. "I hit him in the face with my fan. I think I made his nose bleed. He deserved it. _No one_ picks on them while I'm around." His glare was defiant, as if daring Gaara to tell him he was wrong for defending the other two. Gaara smiled behind his hand. Bingo.

"That is what I'm talking about," he said quietly. "That closeness you three feel together. That's what it means to be brothers and sister."

"Really?" Cain asked hopefully. Their faces were shining.

"Really," Gaara replied solemnly. Sonya let out a squeal of joy and hugged both boys. Jax giggled and Cain just looked incredibly relieved.

"Thanks, Uncle."

"You're welcome. Now, I have paperwork to finish if I ever want to leave this office again. I trust there will be no more emergencies today?"

"No sir," they bowed in unison and raced to the door, all smiling.

"Thank you, Daddy!" Jax called as they scurried away. Gaara shook his head, and then dropped it on the desk with a groan. He really had had enough picking at his brain for one day.

"I'm impressed," a new voice from the door drawled. "You managed to answer a very tricky question with an even trickier answer."

"Kankuro," Gaara acknowledged to the desk, not bothering to lift his head. "Do you have the report?"

Kankuro set the report on his brother's desk and the coffee mug beside his head.

"You look like you could use this."

"Thanks." Gaara forced himself back into a sitting position and took the cup. Ah, coffee, the elixir of life.

"So, closeness, huh?" Kankuro grinned and shook his head. "I have to admit, it was good logic. But what are we going to do in a few years when they realize that that whole irritating genealogy thing plays a part?"

"That depends," Gaara shrugged. "How much does blood really mean, in the long run? It will largely depend on their definition of family."

Kankuro nodded understandingly. With a family like theirs, it was no surprise that the definition would be a little different anyway. Besides, they were shinobi, and life was short. Those you loved, whether related to you or not, quickly became family anyway. No point in silly sub-catagories.

"Oh, and Kankuro?" His younger brother glanced up at him over the rim of the coffee mug. Kankuro laughed.

"Find the teacher, right?"

Gaara's response was to growl into his cup. Kankuro really pitied the teacher.


	3. A Most Unusual Pack

AN: Again, blacknbluesiren does NOT own Naruto or anything else associated with it. She DOES own Teulah, Tory, and the briefly mentioned Nara Shikabi. Oh, and if you turn this story upside down and squint real hard, you can sorta kinda see some very mild Shino/Kiba, but nothing of real consequence. Still, if even the idea of it makes you queasy, then hit the pretty back button, and all will be well.

p.s. Teulah, here, is pronounced "Tyou-la" not "Too-luh". Not that it matters :D

p.p.s. not entirely pleased with this one, and will probably redo it. It got a bit long while I was trying to get my point across. CC welcome always, but especially here.

A Most Unusual Pack/Opposites Attract Whether They Want To Or Not

_"I've killed you, haven't I?"_

_"Don't be stupid. You didn't stab me, did you?"_

_"I might as well have."_

Kiba knows he's not the most responsible person in the world, nor the most mature. In fact, he's so well aware of this that it's become second nature to him. Until he learns to act like an adult, he most likely won't be treated like one.

So when Hana is struck down on a mission, and Tsume informs him that he is now responsible for her son, Kiba has only one real response:

"You're shitting me."

He's barely twenty one, he tells his mother, he has no idea how to take care of a child; certainly not a six year old distraught over his mother's death.

"You are his uncle, and he loves you," Tsume tells him.

He'll screw it up, he _knows_ he will. Besides, he's a shinobi, not a nursemaid!

"Never said you were, kid, but this is part of our life, too. We have to raise new shinobi, right?"

He can't do it. He just can't.

Tsume smacks him for that one, and informs him that on no uncertain terms can he back out of this. It's what Hana wanted, and dammit he is going to respect his nee-san's last wishes.

And so, rather abruptly, Kiba finds himself the guardian of his nephew, Tory.

_"I am an Inuzuka, you big creep! You leave my pack alone!"_

Shino is quite the opposite of his dog-nin friend, which is probably why the two of them get along so well. He is the quiet to Kiba's volume, the reason to his emotion. They work well together (usually). So it's no surprise to the Aburame that his friend appears on his doorstep at eleven at night, with an exhausted child on his back.

"Please say you know something about kids," is all the Inuzuka says by way of explanation.

"I don't," Shino replies simply, "but I do have a couch and blankets."

"You know I love you, right?"

And so the boy—Tory, if Shino heard correctly—spends the night on the futon in Shino's home, while Kiba panics and Shino helps him think of a plan. Shino watches his friend grow up practically overnight.

_"You're a better choice than you think. Hana knew what she was doing."_

_"Excuse me? What in hell's name do I know about children, Shino? I'll tell you what: NOTHING."_

_"You know how to love unconditionally. That's all you need to know."_

Tory, to Kiba's unending relief, is an easy (if ridiculously stubborn) kid to look after. From the start, Tory makes it clear that, even though he does not understand where his mother has gone and why she is not returning, he trusts his uncle to care for and love him. The amount of trust he puts in Kiba is kind of alarming, actually.

"I don't see why it scares you so much," Shino says as they spar one day. "The whole village relies on people like you and me to protect it."

"Not the same," Kiba retorts. "Just you wait. You'll understand when you have a kid putting all this pressure on you."

Shino doesn't really believe him. The Inuzukas all look after each other, working like a micro-village within the village. Kiba is just unused to being solely responsible for lives—defenseless lives-- other than his own.

And then Teulah arrives.

_"You will look after her? No one else is willing."_

_"I don't know if I am suited--"_

_"It doesn't matter, really—she's not got long herself. But SOMEONE needs to take her until then."_

_"Fine."_

Shino had explained it to him once, the way the kakai bugs worked with their human hosts, but Kiba still has a hard time wrapping his mind around the concept. One thing he _did_ understand, though, was that—like with all blood limits—the Aburame gift could sometimes go horribly wrong. Teulah's parents are an example of that wrongness.

He found Shino at the hospital, standing rigidly against the wall, stoic and silent as ever. Beside him, folded up tightly on a chair, was a skinny little girl with dark hair and eyes. Kiba remembers the terrified, confused look she shot at him when he approached, Tory at his heels. Immediately, his nephew honed in on the other child.

"Hi!"

"…"

"I'm Tory. Who're you?"

"…"

She was Teulah, and as of twenty minutes before they had arrived, she was an orphan.

It was a rare hereditary condition, Shino had explained later that evening (this time with Teulah camped out on Kiba's couch while Shino panicked and Kiba planned). An Aburame acquires a certain number of Kakai bugs inside him at birth, much like all human beings have a certain number of chromosomes. Since the bugs consume chakra, this number is vital to ensuring that the host is not consumed from the inside.

Occasionally, though, like with humans and chromosomes, an Aburame is born with the wrong number. A death sentence if there ever was one.

The death is a slow one, apparently. The bugs simply consume more chakra than the body can create, and eventually the person dies from the strain. Teulah's parents suffered this fate. She too will probably suffer the same. The only way to avert the disaster is to remove the excess of kakai bugs and put them in someone who has none, thus regulating the levels. But Shino doesn't think there is anyone who would be willing to take on that burden, and Teulah is adamant that no one else acquire her "disease".

Not surprisingly, Teulah hates the bugs, the Aburame Clan, and virtually everything else about her existence.

_"Look, Shino, you know there's one solution…"_

_"Not really. We cannot just recruit a random person to take half of her bugs."_

_"I don't want anyone else having these…things, Uncle. I don't want anyone else to go through this."_

_"I'll do it!"_

_"NO Tory."_

_"But Teul--!"_

_"I SAID NO! NOW GO AWAY AND LEAVE ME ALONE, YOU PEST!"_

When they were young, Kiba thought that Shino was an emotionless "bugfreak". If he was completely honest with himself, he will admit that Shino scared him a little.

If he's completely honest with himself, he will admit that Teulah, who is Shino's polar opposite, scares him a _lot_.

She does not like Tory at all, which is a bad thing because Tory thinks the world of her. She's an angry, sad little girl with a full range of emotion and no concept of the term "censorship". More often than not, it is little Tory who is caught on the receiving end of her wrath.

That _should_ make Kiba angry, he realizes, because his nephew comes to him in tears almost every day for it, and Shino is certainly (though silently) angry enough, but all Kiba can think is that Teulah's mad enough at herself without anyone else joining in. It helps that, after getting the tears out of his system, Tory is right back in the playing field, following Teulah around and bombarding her with questions and other chatter. No matter how she tries, Teulah cannot drive him away.

_"Why do you keep following me? Don't you know I'm diseased?"_

_"No, you're not! And I like you!"_

_"Well I DON'T like you. You're annoying."_

_"And you're mean. I still like you."_

_"…"_

And then, of course, disaster strikes.

She had been acting strange for roughly a week before her vanishing. She was quieter, and less combative. She watched them—Shino, Kiba, and Tory—from the corner of her eye, as if trying to figure out what made them put up with her.

(Because god forbid they actually _love _her. That clearly can't be the reason, right?)

_"I don't care what you do. I just want to be with my parents."_

_"So willing to die, girl?"_

_"I'm going to die, anyway."_

She disappears during class at the Academy, sometime just after lunch. No one really notices at first—she's so quiet in class anyway, people barely register that she is there.

However, Tory disappears soon after, and he's practically impossible to miss.

"HOW ON EARTH DID YOU LOSE _TWO_ OF YOUR STUDENTS??" Iruka is screaming at the cowering chuunin when Shino and Kiba arrive. Teulah and Tory have been missing for roughly an hour. The other students are searching the school grounds for them (though Kiba thinks he saw Nara Shikabi disappear into the forest. He prays vehemently that she doesn't find anything out there). Akamaru and the other Inuzuka dogs join the hunt, the kakai bugs are dispatched, and the two men go hunt down the remaining member of their team, the one who can see everywhere and everything. Thank gods for Hinata.

_THUNK!_

_"Tory!!"_

_"I…told…you…I wasn't…going…to let you…go away like…this."_

_"You hurt him. You HURT HIM!"_

_"Hey, he's the one who stepped in front of the kunai, kid."_

_"You…leave her alone, you….you jerk!"_

_"What's it to you, Inuzuka? And you're just a kid, too!"_

_"Tory, please, I'm begging you, get out of here."_

_"No. Inuzukas …protect their pack. Whether THIS one… likes it or not… she's part of mine. So you can forget killing her!"_

_"Fine, I'll just kill you."_

_"NO! TORY!"_

It is the Nara girl who finds them, despite Kiba's prayers to the contrary. She flies out of the forest, yelling in a most un-Nara-like manner. Kiba thinks that just maybe there are a few people out in Suna who might not have heard her, but otherwise…

Akamaru is sent ahead of the search party, and his distressed howling—accompanied by the heavy scent of blood that he _knows_ is his nephew's—is enough to drive Kiba to run faster than he has ever run in his life.

_"Hey, girl, what are you doing?"_

_"You hurt him."_

_"And now I'm gonna hurt you. So deal. S'what you wanted, right?"_

_"You. Hurt. Him."_

_"So—oh, shit. Don't you dare, you bitch. Don't you sic those---AAAAGGGHHHHH!!!!!"_

_"Tory?"_

_"…"_

_"Tory, please don't be dead. I'm sorry. I'm so, so, sorry. **Please** don't die now." _

_"…'M not gonna die."_

They find them deep in the forest, Tory a bloody heap on the ground and Teulah crouched over him, her kakai bugs teeming over her body like a second skin. The only thing Kiba can think, before his brain shuts down completely and instinct takes over, is that there really are too many of those bugs.

The next few hours are a blur of barked orders, frantic medic nins, and the overwhelming uncertainty that his nephew might die. Tory might _die_, of kunai wounds—two of them—stabbed deep into his side. Teulah is injured too, bruised and scratched, with a long gash across the palm of her hand. Her bugs are frantically working to sew the split flesh back together.

"How did this happen?" he faintly hears Shino ask the Nara girl. She responds something about a rogue nin attacking, Tory getting injured, and Teulah driving him off with her bugs. She's lying, Kiba can smell it almost instantly (Naras aren't good liars, anyway), but leaves it as it is. He gets the feeling that Teulah will tell them what is going on when she's ready.

_"Tory?"_

_"…yeah?"_

_"Did…did you mean it, when you said you would take some of….of these bugs?"_

_"Yeah."_

_"Do you still mean it?"_

_"…uh-huh."_

_"Then give me your hand. Now."_

_"What're you doing?"_

_"Saving both of us."_

Shino is allowed to see Teulah first, and he brings Kiba with him to find out just what happened. Teulah is sitting, curled up on the examination table, as quiet and as somber as either man has ever seen her. Shino stands before her, arms crossed and as stoic as ever, and waits. Kiba leans against the wall and watches. Teulah meets his eyes, winces, and looks down at the ground.

"Well?" Shino quietly inquires. Teulah opens her mouth and drops a bombshell.

"I was going to kill myself.

Shino freezes. Kiba nearly falls over. Teulah, still staring intently at her shoes, continues relentlessly. She knew she was going to die of chakra consumption, and she had not wanted to wither away like her parents. She had nothing left, no family, no one who really wanted her—she only had the chance to die on her own terms. So when a rogue nin from the Hidden Mist found her in the woods a week earlier, he told her he would kill her, in exchange for some of the kakai bugs from her body to take back to the village. Teulah had agreed. She had set out today to meet Death, fully intending to never return. She had been prepared to die.

What she had not been prepared for, however, was for Tory to follow her. Or for him to leap between her and the kunai meant for her heart.

Shino seems to have turned to stone now, but Kiba can smell the cold bite of fury, and the stench of fear rolling off him in waves. He himself is a bit scared of what will happen next.

She had been stupid, Teulah concludes in a voice barely above a whisper. Stupid, and selfish. She had a family, she had people who loved her and who were willing to do anything for her, and she had been about to throw it away. So when the Mist nin made another swipe at Tory, the prey turned into the predator, and Teulah put those excess bugs to good use by forcing them into the nin's body until he was completely consumed, flesh and all, by the hungry insects. Then she used those same insects, those chakra-munchers that were slowly killing her, to patch Tory back together until help could arrive. Because of her, Tory nearly died; but because of her, he would live.

Kiba is completely braced against the wall now, stunned speechless. His brain and heart are at war with each other—he wants to shout at Teulah, shake her until her teeth rattle, make sure she understands just how damn _stupid_ she was. But he also wants to hug her tightly and make sure she understands that her realizations were true: she does have a family.

Shino, however, beats him in response time, and literally sends Kiba to the floor with his reaction.

He yells. Loudly.

For a man who has _never_ raised his voice above a calm monotone for as long as Kiba has known him, Shino is damn terrifying when he shouts. And shouts he does, railing at the younger Aburame for her foolishness, her selfishness, her willingness to give away the Aburame Clan secret, _Konoha's_ secret of all things. And as he lambasts his young ward for the mess she has caused, Kiba realizes that underneath the calm, "bugfreak" exterior, Shino has been just as worried and distressed about Teulah as he was.

(He should have seen it coming, really. It was quite obvious. If he hadn't been so goddamn uncertain about how to look after her (Kiba was right, it really is terrifying to have a child rely on you like this. Particularly THIS child) he would have seen the signs. If he hadn't been so goddamn distant, maybe she never would have tried this course of action in the first place).

Shino pauses to take a breath in his litany, and Kiba hears, very quietly:

"I understand if you don't want me here anymore. I know I've caused a lot of trouble."

Kiba scrambles to his feet. It's time to hit the brakes, before any more damage is done. He grabs Shino, ducking the arm that swings at him (like when they rough-housed as kids. Shino has more control, but Kiba has more bulk) and wrestles him to the doorway. The two men are nose to nose, glowering.

"Let go," Shino hisses.

"She thinks you want to get rid of her!" Kiba hisses back.

"I _said—_what?"

And just like that, the fury falls away, leaving only stunned disbelief in its wake.

Teulah is still staring at the floor when Kiba approaches her, so he crouches until he can look at her dark, glassy eyes. She stares back at him, unblinking.

"No one is going to send you away," Kiba tells her firmly. "It's like Tory said: you're part of this pack, now, and we're not in the business of driving anyone out of it."

"But Uncle Shino…" she begins softly. Kiba twists to look at Shino, who is watching with an _almost_ unreadable look on his face (almost, because they are teammates and Kiba has long learned to figure out the tiny alterations in the usual smooth mask speak volumes) and lets out a silent sigh of relief as the Aburame shakes his head.

"But nothing," Shino cuts her off quietly. "I am angry, and you were foolish, but I would never turn you out. Your home is here."

Teulah stiffens, and for a great and terrible minute, Kiba thinks she is going to cry. But then it passes, and all she says is, "may I see Tory?"

_"Hey…this feels funny."_

_"They're familiarizing themselves with your chakra. In a minute, they're going to start making basic repairs on your injuries."_

_"Really? How?"_

_"They secrete an enzyme that works like hemoglobin. They can't sew up the whole injury, but they'll keep you from bleeding to death, internally or externally."_

_"Cool!"_

_"…"_

_"It IS cool, Teulah. You're lucky to have this gift."_

_"…you have it now, too."_

_"Good."_

_"Good?"_

_"Good. Now no one can say we aren't family. Our blood and chakra is mixed. You are part Inuzuka and I am part Aburame."_

_"Tor--"_

_"End of story. Ouch. It's kind of hard to breathe. Hey, I think I hear barking…"_

Tory is in a room down the hall, where Sakura and Hinata are presiding over his inspection. Sakura heads off the two men before they can go in, but Teulah slips past the kunoichi and into the room.

"He has kakai in him," Sakura says without preamble. Kiba frowns.

"I know. Teulah was using them to hold him together until we got him here."

"No, you don't understand. The kakai are _in _him. Part of him. They did the procedure—Teulah expelled the excess kakai and Tory accepted them. Teulah is going to live now, too." Sakura shakes her head, bewildered. "I've never seen anything like it, boys. I really haven't." She steps aside and lets them in.

Hinata is sitting in a chair by the bed, leaning back with her chin resting atop her laced fingers. She smiles at the two men (boys; and her boys no less. They always will be) and nods to the bed. Kiba and Shino pull up chairs on either side of her and collapse into them. Shino, in another rare exhibit of outright emotion, puts his head in his hands. Hinata idly reaches out and rubs his shoulder (because she is Hinata, the younger sister he never had, and these people beside him are the only ones who will ever see him crack).

"I think I nearly killed her," the Aburame mutters to the floor. Kiba snorts, and Shino looks up.

"You were right," he says simply. "It is much more difficult than I thought."

"Yeah, it is," Kiba shrugs, "but you'll learn. We both will."

Shino nods. Hinata smiles at him and gives his shoulder another squeeze. She, more than anyone, appreciates the bond of this team and the boys that made it so strong. No one else realizes the sanctuary that comes with these two—one whose mere presence is enough to calm a host of panic, the other who embodies security and unconditional loyalty. They will get through this endeavor together because they need those things in each other as much as the children need them.

On the sterile, white hospital bed, Tory sleeps, oblivious to his surroundings. One arm is by his side, riddled with IV needles. The other is slung haphazardly over the shoulders of the girl who crawled in beside him moments before. Teulah rubs her damp face against the sheets, makes herself comfortable, and settles for the first real sleep she has had in weeks.

(It is far from perfect, of course and the road to properly understanding each other is long and obstructed, but she thinks that maybe, just maybe, she likes it better this way—dysfunction, confusion, and all. In any case, no one can ever tell her she is without family again. Humans are pack creatures, and she is part of the strongest, fiercest, and most unusual pack in Konoha).

AN--like I said, I'm not 100 satisfied with this one. Teulah is a hard character to write because, while Tory is a lot like his uncle, she is the opposite of virtually everything held in esteem in the Aburame Clan--it is HARD to write that convincingly and concisely. Sigh. Ah well, I will keep working on it.


	4. The Shadow

Disclaimer: Blacknbluesiren does not own Naruto or anything related to it. She does own Nara Shikabi, and Akimichi Nora and Chouzi.

AN: because she was briefly mentioned in the last story, I felt I had to expound upon Shikabi. She was an interesting character to write, and overall I was pretty pleased with how this turned out.

The Shadow

Shikabi is a tiny baby—tiny hands, tiny feet, tiny nose, tiny voice. Such a tiny voice; barely a reedlike whisper or a mouselike squeak. This suits Shikamaru fine—noise is troublesome after all.

It worries Ino to death.

"Shika, I swear she's too quiet," she tells him as they sit on the front porch of the house the three of them share for convenience's sake. They spend most evenings here. Ino rocks Chouzi in her arms as she stares down at the little, squeaking baby.

"How do you even hear her when she needs you?"

"Don't be so troublesome," he drawls in response. "We have an understanding. She's fine. She'll get her voice in her own time."

Ino worries that he is wrong.

Shikabi is a completely silent toddler. She does not laugh. She does not cry. She does not speak. Five years old, and she merely follows her louder counterparts, the eternally squabbling brother-sister duo Chouzi and Nora, like a shadow. When she is not following them, she is following Ino; watching her with large, dark eyes. It unnerves Ino, that steady black gaze, and it unnerves her more that she, a mother, can not figure out what it is this child wants from her.

"Shika, she's mute!" Ino cries as they sit on the porch and watch the three children throw cardboard throwing stars at soda cans. Nora hits three in a row and squeals her delight, her strawberry blond pigtails swinging. Chouzi throws a star at her, declaring he can beat her easily. Shikabi watches, her chin on her knees.

"She's not mute, woman," Shikamaru replies, rolling his eyes. "She'll get her voice in her own time. Stop being so troublesome!"

Ino looks to her husband for help, but Chouji shakes his head.

"Trust him, Ino. He knows what he's talking about."

Ino huffs angrily and gazes at her children—two by blood, and one by everything but that—as Nora and Chouzi get into a shouting match over who is the better star-thrower (Nora is winning by sheer volume) and Shikabi continues to watch them silently.

They turn six, then seven. By eight, Shikabi is still as silent as ever. She is still the shadow, following Ino around like a ghost. Ino is seriously considering beating up Shikamaru until he agrees to take his daughter to the hospital because there is obviously something wrong. The teachers at the Academy tell her that Shikabi is as bright as anything, but never speaks a word in class or training. The other children ask her why she does not talk; some of them tease her when she gives no response. Ino's own children, to her complete bemusement, act as though Shikabi's silence is completely normal, and speak to her as if her silences are fully worded answers.

"Let's play tag!"

"Nooooo, hide-and-seek!"

"We ALWAYS play that! Let's play tag!"

"What do you want to play, 'Kabi?"

"….."

"See?? I TOLD you, Nora! We always play hide-and-seek!"

"Fine, fine. Tag it is!"

"Am I the only one who sees something wrong with this??" She explodes one evening, pointing at the three children racing around the street.

"Yes," Shikamaru replies instantly. Ino growls.

"She doesn't talk, Shikamaru," she snarls, maternal panic making her twice as dangerous as normal. The two men glance nervously at each other. Ino in mother-hen mode is quite possibly the most deadly thing in the world.

"Nara, did you hear me? Your. Daughter. Does. Not. Speak. At all. Ever. Why does this not worry you?"

Shikamaru sighs.

"I told you, Ino--"

"And I'm telling YOU that when she does not speak for _eight years_ there is a problem!" Ino shouts, standing and knocking her chair over. Shikamaru has the grace to look a bit startled as the blond woman looms over him, seething.

"Ino--" Chouji begins, raising a placating hand. Ino smacks it away, her eyes filling with angry tears.

"Why doesn't she talk, Shikamaru?" She asks raggedly. "Would you just tell me that?"

Shikamaru sighs and pulls Ino to sit next to him. He puts a brotherly arm around her shoulders.

"Look, you," he says in an uncharacteristically patient voice. "Sakura looked at her and she's fine. No vocal chord damage or anything. Shikabi doesn't speak because she hasn't had any need to. When she feels she needs to say something, she will. Not before."

Ino nods and stands to go watch the children some more. She feels slightly better knowing that Shikamaru at least had Sakura look at the girl. Still, Ino would feel better if she could just read that black-eyed gaze the way she could read her own children. Maybe then she would not feel like she is failing Shikabi somehow.

That night, Ino sits in her darkened kitchen, nursing a mug of tea. Nora and Chouzi have left their mark all over this room, from the scratches and dents in the woodwork to the pictures and books littering the table. Ino looks over the myriad of totems, searching for an indication of the ghost-child who lives here, and finds nothing. This absence stabs at her exhausted heart and Ino puts her head on her arms, weeping silently.

At least, she thought she was silent. The rustle at her elbow tells her otherwise. Ino jerks up and Shikabi leaps silently back at the sudden movement. Woman and child stare at each other. Shikabi has a jar of peanut butter in her hands.

"Hey," Ino says softly, finally. "Hungry?"

Shikabi nods solemnly and holds out the peanut butter. Ino takes it from her with a sigh and gets up to find bread.

"Sit down, 'Kabi," she says quietly. "I'll get you a sandwich."

She feels rather than sees the girl climb onto the stool behind her as she gets out bread and honey—Shikabi will never just eat a plain peanut butter sandwich and there is no jam—and she rubs her eyes furiously to rid them of the vestiges of tears.

Shikabi's eyes are like drills on the back of her neck.

The sandwich made and cut, Ino returns to the counter and puts the sandwich in front of the shadow-child. Shikabi takes a small bite, pauses, and shifts her gaze from Ino, to her tea, and back to Ino again.

"What is it?" Ino asks. The black gaze shifts back and forth again. Ino can feel the frustration welling back up inside her.

"Shikabi, you have to talk to me," she snaps finally. "I don't know what it is you want. Please, can't you just tell me?" Her voice cracks and she inwardly curses her hormones for making her so weepy this evening.

Shikabi puts her sandwich down, swivels to face Ino, and puts one hand firmly down on the stool. Ino blinks.

_Sit_, the gesture says. She looks into the black eyes and finds they say the same thing. Ino pulls out the stool and sits, picking her tea back up again, and Shikabi returns to her sandwich with something like a smile.

"I'm sorry I got impatient with you," Ino says finally. She watches the girl from the corner of her eye, but Shikabi gives no indication that she even heard her. Ino continues anyway.

"I am. I feel like I'm failing you somehow, by not knowing what you're trying to tell me. I know I'm not your mother," here, Shikabi twitches slightly, and her lips quirk into a frown, "but you live here, and I consider you my child as much as Nora or Chouzi…so it hurts me to think I'm somehow letting you down." She chuckles weakly and rubs her eyes. She stares intently at her tea, and doesn't realize that Shikabi is now staring intently at her.

"Your father says, has said for years, that you'll use your voice when you're ready to," she continues, gazing into the inky liquid. "I don't know what to think. Are you silent because you can't talk, or because you won't? Do you not talk because you don't want to, or are you afraid to? I just wish I knew these things. Really, I just wish I knew you were _choosing_ to keep quiet, that you were okay and not silently suffering somehow. See? I've watched you grow up all this time, and I still can't even tell _that_. What kind of mother am I?"

Shikabi jumps out of her stool. Ino swivels around to face the girl, her white nightshirt a bright blot against the gloomy kitchen.

"What is it?" She asks. "What did I say?"

Shikabi regards her for a moment, then steps forward and lays her head on Ino's lap, wrapping her thin arms around the woman's knees. Ino, stunned, puts a hand on the dark hair. The last time one of the children did this, it was Nora, who accompanied the tender gesture with the cheerful declaration, "you're my bestest mother!"

Shikabi gives her legs a squeeze, as if affirming Ino's guess, and disappears up the stairs. Ino sits on the stool a moment longer, feeling oddly as if she has been smacked by her own mind-opening jutsu, before drying her damp face and heading to bed herself.

The next day, two children disappear from the Academy.

Ino paces the playing field while Shikamaru and Chouji help canvass the school for the missing children. Nora apparently noticed they were missing—that strange Aburame girl and Chouzi's friend Tory, if Ino heard right—and is now being grilled by Iruka and Kurenai for information. Chouzi is helping the other children search the training grounds.

Ino, to say the least, feels useless.

_They aren't here!_ She wants to shout. _I know they aren't here! _

She feels rather than sees Shikabi come up behind her and slip her cold little hand into her own. She looks up at Ino, her face unreadable.

"They're not here, 'Kabi," Ino says, shaking her head. "We would have found them by now. Those kids aren't here. They aren't in the village. What do we do?"

Shikabi, as expected, says nothing. But the little hand slips out of Ino's grasp, pats her arm gently, and then Shikabi vanishes into the trees like the shadow she is. It takes Ino a minute to realize she is not going towards the school or the training grounds, but the forest at the edge of the village. She bites her lip, glances back at the other searchers, and then follows the child as far as the forest's edge.

Whether she stood there for an eternity or a millisecond, Ino doesn't know. All she knows is that one moment, there was silence, and the next a scream rends the air, the sounds tumbling together in a way that sounds strangely like words, and Shikabi barrels out of the forest, her mouth open wide.

"_HELP!_"

Ino feels every fiber of her body go rigid with a sort of static charge as the tiny girl flings herself into her arms, still shouting.

"They're in the forest! We need help! Mommy, we need help _now!_ They're hurt! Helphelphelp!!!!!!" She shakes Ino's arms frantically, and all Ino can do is stare at her, at her mouth moving and sound coming out of it, and she realizes that, for a stunned second, she can not understand a word she's hearing. She focuses on the face instead.

_We need to find help _, the wide eyes and frantic movement are telling her. So Ino grabs Shikabi's hand and they race back towards the Academy, where a pack of people and dogs are already moving towards them.

Hours upon hours later, the missing children found and put safely in the hospital, Ino sits on the porch with Chouji and Shikamaru. Nora is playing hopscotch in the dirt in front of them, and Chouzi is playing with some other children in the street. Shikabi sits at Ino's feet, her knees drawn to her chin. She is silent.

"You were right," Ino says finally, breaking the silence. Shikamaru raises an eyebrow at her.

"Hmm?"

"You said she would use her voice when she wanted to, when she felt she needed to. You were right."

"Of course I was," Shikamaru replies mildly. He winks at his daughter and she smiles back at him over her knees.

"And really," Ino continues thoughtfully, "you've been talking this whole time, haven't you, 'Kabi? Talking without words? I just took forever to learn that language," she decides wryly.

Shikabi rolls to her feet and climbs up onto Ino's lap. She puts one arm around the woman's neck and leans against her shoulder, her dark ponytail tickling Ino's nose.

_You did take forever,_ the action says, _but you're my bestest mother anyway._

"I'm just amazed she had that loud a voice," Chouji muses, offering Shikabi a potato chip. The child takes one and chews quietly. "Shikabi, you're a loudspeaker when you do open your mouth."

Shikabi wrinkles her nose, and Ino swears she can hear her softly mutter, "well, that's troublesome."

AN: voila. I hope you enjoyed.


	5. Remembrance

Disclaimer: Blacknbluesiren does not own Naruto or anything related to it. She does own Hyuuga Nariko and Hyuuga Hiro, as well as the briefly mentioned Kento and Iori.

AN: Kind of drabble-ish. This came to mind while I was reading **Julius Caesar,** of all things. Not entirely sure what I think of this writing style, but hey, experimentation is key to development, right?

I AM aware of the grammatical errors in this piece, by the way. Part of this experiment was to try to write like the thought process of a little girl, and this was my result.

Remembrance

The things she remembers best about her first birthday are the candles. Bright, sparkling candles that flickered and glowed on a tiny cake Auntie Hinata made especially for her. She could not remember what kind of cake it was, or if she even liked it, but Nariko remembered the candles as vividly as if they sat before her now. Whenever she thought of her first birthday, she was suffused with the warmth of those candles, reflected in the warm eyes of her beloved Auntie.

The things she remembers best about her second birthday are the birds. Two birds, for two years, her daddy explained in his deep, quiet voice as he held her in his arms before their cage. She remembers the tiny, sleek bodies of the birds, their beautiful pale blue feathers and the flutter of their hearts beneath her fingers. She does not remember if they sang, or if their beaks were yellow or their claws sharp, but Nariko remembered the soft, delicate bodies of the beautiful birds so clearly it's as if she holds them in her hands again. Whenever she thought of her second birthday, she remembered the fragility of all life, and remembered how her father gently held her the way she gently held the birds.

The thing she remembers best about her third birthday is Hiro. For this reason, her third birthday is her favorite. Her cousin, her brother, her best friend, six months her junior yet it was _she_ who followed _him _everywhere in awe. She remembers him holding her hand tightly as they raced around the compound together, dirtying her birthday kimono as they roughhoused in the dusty courtyard and tearing his good yukata as they climbed trees while their parents stood beneath them, laughing. Her father rarely laughed. She cannot remember what color her kimono was, or whether or not Hiro was scolded for the tear in his yukata, but Nariko remembered Hiro's shoulder pressed against hers as they sat on the tree, and the sound of her father's laughter as if he was laughing now right behind her. Whenever she thought of her third birthday, she remembered the joy of family, and decided that the sound of true happiness was a laugh.

The things she remembers best about her fourth birthday are her friends. Her father's old teammates brought them to her. She remembers Kento, with his raven-black bowl cut and brilliant green eyes, and she remembers Iori, with his quick reflexes and mischievous grin. They spent the day together, talking about everything and anything, playing Ninja War with the other children, and eating chocolate cake with blue flowers on the front porch of Nariko's house. She does not remember if Kento's father gave them galloping horsey rides around the courtyard or if Iori's mother showed them how to accurately throw stars, but she remembered Kento and Iori, two whirling dervishes of energy and friendliness, so clearly that it steals her breath and makes her laugh. Whenever she thought of her fourth birthday, Nariko remembered friendship, and understood it was something both loud and quiet, energetic and peaceful.

The things she remembers best about her fifth birthday are the colors green and red, and the game hide-and-seek.

Green, that poisonous, poisonous hue slashed across her father's forehead. Green, the color of the spiteful chakra of the clan members who tried to slap that same color on her forehead while her father and Auntie were on a mission, too far away to protect her.

Red, horrible red, the color of life and death. Red, the color of blood, and of rage; the color that ran down Hiro's pale face and neck from the wound where the incomplete seal jutsu bounced off him, and ran down Nariko's hands and knees when she fell from the force of Hiro's shove; the shove that pushed her out of range and out of harm's way just as fluidly as he fell into it. Red, the color she saw when she charged the evil man, her Byakugan erupting for the first time, and hit him in the stomach for all she was worth; punishing him as best she could for hurting her cousin, for trying to hurt _her_.

And then the hiding. Hiro dragging her down the corridor, the shouting and commotion outside muted within the walls of the compound. They hid together under Aunt Hanabi's bed, shivering and oozing red, until Hiro whispered in her ear that it was a game, a game of hide-and-seek that would teach them to be good, stealthy ninja, and to win all they had to do was stay really quiet until Daddy or Auntie Hinata came for them. Then they lay, silent and still, clinging to each other for what seemed several eternities. She remembers exactly the shades of blue that filled the sky when Auntie Hinata burst into the room, screaming their names, and she remembers exactly the icy tone of voice her grandfather used when he sentenced the evil men. She remembers every detail of that day too well; so vividly that it still occasionally makes it hard for her to sleep at night, and she will forever hate the colors red and green. When she remembers her fifth birthday, Nariko thought of the evil in the world, and it was that day that she decided, without a doubt in her young mind, that she would be a great ninja—like her father, like her auntie—so she could protect other people the way they protected her, and so she could punish people like the ones who had hurt Hiro.

It is her twelfth birthday today, and as she sits between Kento and Iori, fingering the edge of her brand-new hita-ite, she commits every detail to memory. This birthday will be remembered in its entirety, because it is her most important one. She knows today, that she is one step closer to making sure her fifth birthday never happens again—to anyone. She scans the room behind her with her strong Byakugan and sees Hiro tying his own proof of genin status around his head. His own Byakugan finds hers and they share grim smiles. He has not forgotten her birthday either.

They will be great ninjas together, and together the Hyuuga cousins will make sure that the only things remembered on birthdays are candles, birds, family, and friends.

AN: And there you go. Kind of scary, actually. Poor Hiro and Nariko--why must people torture the Hyuuga children so? Jeez louise. Let me know what you think. CC welcome.


	6. Nine Years Makes A Lot Of Difference

Disclaimer: Blacknbluesiren does not own Naruto; hence the title FANfiction.

AN: Okay, so I am already WELL aware that most people are going to read this and flip a lid. Between the bizarre writing style (another experiment of mine. Switching POV's all over the place) and the subject matter, this is probably the most difficult piece I've written for TTCF thus far. So, let me briefly explain the reasoning behind this semi-abomination: I was watching the episode of Naruto that explains Gaara's history, and I had a thought--Gaara had grown up, been BORN, with Shukaku inside him. Naruto had always had Kyuubi in him. No one knew them outside of the fact that they were demon containers. No wonder they both turned out a little strange. So then I got to thinking "well, what if the jinchuuruki wasn't an infant? What if the demon was sealed in a child who had had a few years to develop mentally and emotionally?" I chewed over this possiblity, and decided to try it on one of my OC's, just to see what would happen. In the end, Sonya was the one who seemed to come out on top of the little ordeal I put them all through, so I decided to make it a story.

Truly, she is the most believable, I think, because her personality lends her towards being upbeat and a bit snarky. Given the time to develop as an individual and not a demon container, she seems more likely to argue endlessly with Shukaku rather than be out-and-out afraid of him.

Anyway, that's my reasoning. Reviews and CC's welcome, always, and I completely understand that some people are going to have serious problems with this fic. Ah well, this domain is here so we can post our musings and experiments, right? Right.

So, without further ado:

Nine Years Makes A Lot of Difference

**10:45 pm—Suna Hospital **

They should have done away with it. They had suffered countless years at his mercy, fearful of his next outburst and hoping in vain it would not end in someone's miserable death. The entire village was terrified of him, and with good reason. So when they had the chance to destroy him, why the _hell_ had they not taken it? Why, when presented with Shukaku, once again sealed in an inanimate object (a small cedar chest, this time), had Gaara not burned the damn thing, and the demon within it? _Why_, in the name of all and anything good on this goddamn planet, did he lock it in his office like a hidden weapon, like a gun concealed beneath a fake panel? It was only a matter of time before something happened, and someone else got hurt.

And God, why oh _why_ did it have to be his _niece_ of all people?

He paced around and around in a circle outside the operating room, where the medic-nin, under Sakura's watchful eye, were frantically trying to repair the damage (Sakura might as well just move here. Gaara is fairly certain she's the only one who knows how to keep his accident-prone family members—and, ultimately, their progeny—alive.) He vaguely remembered the list: shredded muscle lining, fractured bones, strained and torn organs, and her vocal chords bruised to bursting from all the screaming she did. When Shukaku sunk his claws into his prey, it was hell. And the damn sand raccoon had been destroying her from the inside for nearly five hours.

_How the **hell** __had this happened?_

A stupid question, really. He knew exactly what happened. He had been foolish, and had made _stupid_ assumptions. He had assumed his family would be safe during a meeting with the Hokage and the ambassadors of Suna and Konoha. He had not had anyone guarding the three children, instead letting them play by themselves in the compound courtyard. They should have been safe in their own damn _yard_ right?

Wrong, apparently.

**4pm—The Tower**

_"Kazekage-sama!!! Enemy-nin in the courtyard!"_

_"JAX!!!"_

_"Put him down, you creep! Put him—!" **THWACK!** __"__OW!"_

_"Cain!"_

_"Daddy, **help!"**_

_Sonya, get back __here!"_

_"But Aunt Tem--!"_

_"Inside. Now. Both of them. Dispatch all units and secure the walls. Put Cain and Sonya under guard."_

_"But Uncle--!"_

_"Be **quiet** __Cain. Do as he says. Go."_

_"But Mom!"_

_"**Now."**_

"_I have to help!! I have to go find him! Let me go! **Uncle, make them let me go!**__"_

_"Temari, get her inside."_

**6pm****—The Village, searching.**

Then he had assumed they would be able to find the enemy quickly. Again, wrong. Every second counted, and too many were slipping through their fingers. A half hour passed, then an hour, and then two. Still, they could not find the enemy, or any sign of Jax. Gaara joined the search, praying vehemently to gods he wasn't sure existed.

_Don't let him be dead. Don't let him be dead. Don't let him be dead._

His gravest mistake, though, he did not even realize he had made until he saw the tornado of sand and felt the backlash of violent chakra a few hours later.

**11:15pm—Suna Hospital**

"Kazekage-sama."

Gaara spun on his heel and faced the weathered visage of Ebizo, the village elder. The old man looked even more ancient in the orange glow of evening. He looked weary.

"Please sit down, Kazekage-sama. I…need to tell you a few things about Sonya's condition."

"Ebizo-sama, just tell me what the hell is--"

"_Sit down, boy!_"

Gaara sat, too stunned to argue. Ebizo sat across from him, his wrinkled hands massaging an equally wrinkled brow.

"You have contacted Kankuro-dono?"

Gaara nodded stiffly. Kankuro had been away on a mission for the past two days. Gaara had ordered his return as soon as he found the children and seen the damage.

**8:30pm—the desert**

They were good at escaping, all three of them. Cain could blast his way through most doors and Jax seemed to slip through walls like a ghost. Sonya liked ventilation systems. She could use her chakra threads to pull herself up into vents and go from there. It never occurred to Gaara to make sure the room in which they were held didn't have a vent.

She had made Cain promise not to say a word. They were both furious about being locked up, instead of helping the search, so of course he had agreed. No one noticed she was gone for nearly an hour and a half.

_She had panicked, definitely, when the guards pushed her and Cain into that room and locked the doors and windows. She had been fortunate to find a vent in the ceiling. Otherwise, she was pretty sure she and Cain would have thrown chairs through the window or something equally drastic. _

_She ended up in her Uncle's office by accident—she had been TRYING to find the vent that led outside. Instead, she had tumbled out of the wall and into the Kazekage's desk so hard that pens rolled off the top and the drawers banged open. She had glanced into the drawers as she stood, completely without thought, and that was when she had seen it. Him. Whatever._

She went out on her own, blazing through the desert like a fury, and leaving a very obvious trail of flailing chakra and blood in the sand. From the moment he crawled into her body, Shukaku started destroying it. By the time she got to the enemy camp, she was probably already coughing up blood.

_There was pain almost from the start. Splitting pain behind her eyes, the mother of all migraines, and the feeling that her organs were being ripped away from their designated spots in her body. Shukaku had laughed, cackled really, the whole time. She had wanted to cry, it hurt so much. But she was a shinobi, and she was a Subaku. Pain could be ignore__d if it had to be, and right now__ it definitely had to be._

_They burst out of the compound, chakra and sand flying everywhere. Every step was excruciating, and her lungs were full of blood, but she could smell Jax. He wasn't far. _

Temari found them, long after darkness and cold had fallen upon the desert. His son, quietly with his knees drawn to his chest, was sitting in a pool of his cousin's blood. His hand was tightly fisted in the fabric of Sonya's shirt, and the girl was curled up in a fetal position in the cold shadow of a tumbled rock. She had looked up at them, her face red with fever, streaked with blood, and her green eyes over-bright. He could see Shukaku laughing at him behind those eyes.

"_He's okay, Uncle. I…I don't feel very good, but Jax is okay. It's okay. It's okay."_

She had said that the whole way home.

It was Kankuro following Akatsuki all over again. She was just as stupid, just as stubborn, and just as willing to do _anything_ to get her family back-- even make a deal with the devil himself.

_His help for her body--that was the agreement. Shukaku was sick of his box, he wanted to move again, to kill again. Sonya wanted Jax back. Alive. And she wanted those enemy nin to pay. She would get Jax back, Shukaku would get to do his killing. They would both win._

_Only, he never mentioned the fact that, once he was in her body, he wasn't coming out again. Or that he fully intended to annihilate her from the inside._

**11:30pm—Suna Hospital**

There was a shriek and the whisper of sand from behind the closed door. Ebizo's head jerked toward it and Gaara hissed a breath, rising swiftly to his feet. He didn't know what he would do if Shukaku got out and started attacking. What if he used Sonya's body? Could he really kill his own niece?

For the defense of his village, he might have to.

The nurse stumbled out, looking slightly shell-shocked. She was fine, but for scratches reminiscent of claw marks across her cheek. She leaned against the wall, drew a deep breath, and prepared to go back inside.

"Wait."

She turned towards Gaara, and her determined expression faltered.

"K-Kazekage-sama…"

"What's going on in there?" He would pull his hair out in frustration if he could. The nurse took another deep breath.

"We put Sonya in an induced coma to slow down the damage the Shukaku was doing to her insides. We think he just realized what was going on…he tried to attack, but he couldn't."

"Couldn't?" Ebizo asked, sounding both confused and curious. Gaara just stared, dumbfounded. The nurse fidgeted under the scrutiny and nodded.

"She has sand in her…in her throat, in her skin…it's causing part of the damage. It flew out, like a whip almost. It caught me in the face and grabbed Sakura-sama's arm but…but then some blue chakra flew out of Sonya's fingers and wrapped around the sand. It sort of fell apart on the floor. It was…strange, to say the least."

"What happened to the sand?" Gaara faintly heard Ebizo ask. His mind had gone numb somewhere during the nurse's explanation. What was going on inside Sonya's body? Just who was in control of whom?

_pov skip_

She never knew her inner self was so….so _blue!_

The ground (was it ground?) beneath her shimmered a dark navy, and the walls (were they walls?) were a strange, iridescent black opal. And everywhere, _everywhere_, there were threads of chakra. Her chakra, blue like her father's. Sonya gazed up at the web of chakra threads inside her and marveled at them.

"Girl."

She resisted the urge to shudder and focused her gaze on the creature that glowered at her through the forest of blue thread.

"Sand Rat," she acknowledged, and smirked at the snarl it drew from her occupant. Her father had once told her that, sometimes, the best way to hide your fear was to be a jerk. This suited Sonya fine—she was perfectly willing to be a jerk right now.

"They will remove me from your body," the Tanuki hissed. "They do not want another jinchuuruki. Not after the disaster The Boy was."

She waited.

"Well?" Shukaku demanded.

"Well what?"

He snarled again and Sonya winced as the sand stung her. She had thought she was beyond pain by the time she got to the enemy camp. Apparently not.

"If they remove me, you die. Surely you're afraid of _that_!"

"I am." Sonya gazed up at the endless blue above her and kept her voice as level as she could.

"Good. You should be. It will be painful. Excruciating."

"Mmm." He talked a lot. A _lot_. He made Cain look like a mute by comparison. Hell, he made _her_ look mute by comparison!

Now that she was here, floating inside her own subconscious with nothing but her thoughts (and an incredibly annoying Sand Rat) to occupy her, Sonya realized that, really, going to Shukaku for help rescuing Jax was probably the single most idiotic thing she had ever done in her young life. Never mind that she was dead terrified of the Ichibi (not that she was ever going to actually _say_ it), but he _was_ what Suna had once considered a deadly weapon! He was a killing machine!The notion made her feel sick.

She did not remember the camp, or the carnage that followed her arrival there. She only remembered the briefest instant, before Shukaku took over in a whirl of sand and bloodlust, when she saw Jax, hiding behind a rock with eyes the size of dinner plates.

"Sonya?" He had queried, his voice trembling.

"It'll be okay, Jax," was the last thing she said before Shukaku kicked her into the recesses of her own mind. "It'll be okay."

When she came to again, she was covered in blood. Her own blood, of course. The blood of the enemy had long soaked into the sand. Jax sat beside her, sniffling, and Shukaku was muttering in her ear. They didn't say a word until Uncle Gaara and Aunt Temari arrived with the ninjas, and then all Sonya could do was repeat, in a state of semi-hysteria, that everything was okay.

That was the last thing she remembered.

Now she was here, while people on the outside decided her fate and a monster on the inside tried to scare her into submission. Sonya gritted her teeth and reviewed puppetry jutsus to herself to distract herself from the angry presence glowering at her through the gossamer threads of blue. She _was _afraid of him, of course (who wasn't?) but she had to be brave. She had to be.

* * *

**11:45pm****—Suna Hospital**

"Kazekage-sama?" He jerked at the sound of Sakura's voice. The Konoha medic-nin was standing in the doorway now, looking tired and more than a little worried. He could see Hinata in the room behind her, bending over the examination table with a look of fierce concentration on her Byakugan-enhanced face. Gaara forced himself to focus and met Sakura's gaze.

"Yes."

"We have stabilized her body but…"

Gaara waited. Sakura bit her lip, and he could see tears threatening her eyes.

"Gaara," she dropped the formality as her voice cracked, "Gaara, she's going to die. We can't take Shukaku out of her without killing her. The only chance she has is to have him sealed in her body, but…"

_But then she's stuck with him._

_Then, she's a jinchuuruki._

_Then, her life will be hell._

What the hell is he going to tell Kankuro?

**Kankuro-dono:**

**Your daughter's condition has stabilized and the demon is under control, but your presence is required immediately. Your consent is needed before we proceed with treatment. Please send acknowledgement and ETA with this messenger bird.**

**Respectfully, **

**Ishida Nori, head of Medical staff**

_K-_

_The only way to save her is to condemn her. She'd have to be a host. Otherwise, she dies. There isn't enough time __. Please tell me what to do. _

_I'm so sorry._

_-G_

It was dark now. Gaara still paced. The medic-nin still worked. Shukaku was still trying to kill the medical staff and Sonya was still, somehow, reining him in.

**1:45am—desert, en route to Suna**

He was going to kill Shukaku.

Actually, scratch that. He was going to kill the enemy nin that landed them in this mess in the first place by kidnapping Jax.

Wait. Sonya already killed them. Well, Shukaku did, in Sonya's body. So scratch that idea too.

Shit, shit, _shit_.

He was terrified of Shukaku. Always had been, always will be. He hated the Ichibi, despised it for the hell it put his family through, and for how weak it made him. Because of Shukaku, he could not be the brother he _should_ have been.

Now what? Would he be able to be the father he needed to be? Or would he be afraid of what lurked behind his daughter's eyes, the way he was afraid of what hid behind the eyes of his brother? Would he be like his own father, trying to kill her in the dead of night?

He shook his head violently and put on another burst of speed. He could see the faint glow of the village's lights in the distance. He was nearly there.

He would figure something out. They all would, because they had to. Because she was his little girl, his Sonya, and he'd be damned if he made the same stupid mistakes he made as a kid.

(But if he gets the opportunity to, without hurting her, he IS going to strangle Shukaku for this.)

He cleared the walls of the village and hurtled towards the hospital. No doubt Gaara would be there, and no doubt he would find some way to blame this on himself. At least Kankuro would get to smack one person tonight, even if only to knock some sense into his brother. Gaara was the _last_ person Kankuro would blame for this.

After all, Gaara more than anyone knew the hell of being a jinchuuruki. He wouldn't wish this on his worst enemy, let alone his niece.

**12:30am—Suna Hospital**

" Gaara, look," it was Temari this time. She had a scroll clenched tightly in her fist. Gaara opened it and the two siblings read it together.

**Ishida-sama:**

**Message received. ETA: two hours from the time this message is sent**

**Respectfully,**

**Subaku Kankuro, jounin**

_G-_

_Not your fault. On my way. Don't let my little girl die--he doesn't scare me enough to risk her life._

_I trust you._

_-K _

Sakura jumped and Hinata hissed under her breath, startled, as the door banged open and Gaara loomed in the open space.

"Kaze--!"

"Seal it."

Hinata froze, her hands hovering over the tiny, prone body on the table. Sakura stared at him silently. He was so tense, he looked as though he may snap, and there was a piece of paper clutched tightly in his hands. She took a wary step forward.

"Gaara?"

"Seal it. Save her. Don't let her die. That's an _order_." The look he gave her dared her to argue. Sakura wisely kept her mouth shut and breathed a sigh of relief. Behind her, Hinata was already getting to work, her hands flying through seals, and her Byakugan carefully watching the chakras bleeding through Sonya's body.

It was going to be a very long night.

_pov skip_

There was a faint humming sound, and Sonya felt something akin to a jolt in the air around her. Shukaku snarled, his eyes growing wary and wild. Sonya looked up, and saw a cloud of lavender chakra swirling down towards her. It was pretty, like evening clouds. The humming was louder now, and she could faintly make out words. Someone was performing a jutsu over her body.

Then the lavender chakra condensed and flew at Shukaku, making him shriek so loud Sonya's ears bled. Suddenly, it did not look quite so benign. Sonya scrambled to get out of the way as the sand demon spun and flailed, trying to keep the chakra at bay. The humming voice was getting louder now, and more purple chakra made the cloud turn from soft lavender to a bold, jeweled hue. Sonya scuttled out of the way, shielding herself in a particularly dense cluster of blue chakra threads, and watched.

It was a sealing jutsu; that much she could see from Shukaku's reaction to it. They were sealing him inside her body.

She would not admit it, least of all to herself, but that purple chakra was making her panic almost as badly as the sand demon. She didn't want to be a jinchuuruki!!!! Sonya shut her eyes tightly, wrapped her arms around her knees, and went back to reciting jutsus. Hopefully, when she opened them again, she would find it had all been a bad dream.

**2:00am—Suna Hospital**

Gaara heard his brother arrive before he saw him—it was pretty impossible not to hear the crash of doors and the terse barking of orders. He waited, rigid against the wall, as his older brother stampeded into the room like a particularly deranged bull.

"Sonya," the puppeteer snapped, his gaze firm on Ebizo. In reply, the old man gestured to Gaara, who _really_ wanted to blend into the wall

"Gaara?" Kankuro's eyes were like drills. Gaara moved from the wall.

"Sakura-san is monitoring the…the sealing right now. It should be done in an hour or so."

"Why aren't you in there?" Kankuro wheeled on Ebizo again. "You know more about that damn Ichibi than anyone else in this village. Why aren't you in there?"

"I will be going in shortly to monitor the actual sealing. They don't need me right now," the old man replied mildly. Kankuro growled and stormed over to where Gaara was standing. Gaara couldn't help but flinch at the waves of anger and fear rolling off of him. Kankuro noticed and frowned.

"You better not be blaming yourself," he muttered so only Gaara could hear. Gaara's mouth twisted into a mockery of a smile—_how well they know each other_—and grumbled back, "only if you're not panicking about what to do now."

"Guilty." Kankuro yanked his hat off and raked his hand through his hair distractedly. He looked exhausted and worried sick and Gaara fought the urge to put a hand on his shoulder or something similarly bizarre. The job of calming and comforting was Termari's—the two of them simply sulked and/or panicked in silent companionship. It was a boy thing.

Ebizo finally went into the operating room and Gaara heard Kankuro swallow beside him. He took a step closer to the puppeteer, and the brothers crossed their arms and waited.

_pov skip_

She knew her father was out there. She felt it, faintly, the brush of his familiar chakra against her conscience. Uncle Gaara's had been there this whole time, and Aunt Temari's came and went. She was fairly certain she even felt Jax and Cain a few times. Sonya felt slightly reassured, knowing they were there. She just had to keep focusing on those signatures, and keep ignoring Shukaku's ranting and roaring. If she just kept that up, it would be over and better in no time.

"I know you're afraid of me, girl." Shukaku hissed from behind his misty barrier. The seal was not complete by any means, but the sand demon could no longer lunge and move about. It was as if he'd been quarantined in a part of her mind.

"I know you're afraid of me. You should be. You will be hated, now. Feared. Your own family will reject you. You will be a monster."

She shook her head and rested it on her knees. She was _so_ tired of this!

"No?" Shukaku chuckled darkly. "Naïve child. Has your uncle told you nothing? Your father? You know I speak the truth. Nothing but pain and loneliness awaits you when this is over. You are better off dead."

She shook her head again, and got out a strangled, "you're wrong."

"Am I? Do explain."

Her head came up with a snap, and she glowered at him, tears stinging her eyes.

"I have nine years on you," she rasped, her hands balling into fists. "Nine years of just being me, only me. You can't take that from me no matter how much you tear up my insides."

He opened his mouth to retort, when a burst of gold illuminated the world around them. Shukaku screamed in pain and, a minute later, Sonya responded in kind as demon and child were forcibly bound together.

**2:25am—Suna Hospital**

A scream tore through the air and Gaara's sand lunged towards the closed door, Kankuro's chakra threads close behind. The door flew open before either element could reach it, though, and the nurse leapt out of the way as a streak of bloodied sand flew by her, only to be caught by tiny threads of blue chakra and hauled back into the operating room. Gaara and Kankuro barreled past the nurse and into the room.

Ebizo was standing over Sonya's body, his hands flying through the binding seals. Hinata was at Sonya's head, her hands on the girl's temples, trying t soothe the screaming child. Sakura was holding down the thrashing body, lending her own chakra to Ebizo as he bound the Shukaku to its new host. All around them, sand was trying to attack, only to be thwarted by Sonya's flying blue chakra. The sand never hurt the doctors or Ebizo, but Gaara noticed with a jolt that the sand _was_ attacking _her_.

"_Daaaaaddyyyyyy!!"_ Sonya wailed, blood running like tears down her face. Hinata grabbed a stunned Kankuro by the shirt and dragged him over to his daughter. The rough jerk seemed to snap him out of his funk and he crouched by Sonya, murmuring soothingly in her ear and stroking her tangled hair. Gaara stood and stared. He felt Temari's presence behind him, and knew she was watching with the same mix of horror and fascination.

_Was this what his father felt when he was born?_

Then, abruptly, it was over. The sand fell, the chakra receded, and Ebizo's hands slowly rose from the girl's body.

"It's done," the old man said softly, sadness etched into the lines of his face. "Suna has a jinchuuruki once again."

Sonya drew a rattling breath, and her eyes slowly opened. She could not be unconscious now. It was too dangerous.

_pov skip_

Her throat hurt. Her head hurt. Her insides all hurt. Hell, even her heart hurt.

But she was awake. Thank the gods for small mercies.

The first thing she saw was a pretty lady with dark hair and very, _very_ pale lavender eyes. Lavender, like the chakra cloud. Her hands were cool and gentle against Sonya's fevered brow and her smile was like a small flash of sunshine.

The second thing she saw was her father, kneeling beside her. His eyes were wide and she could see traces of tears threatening them. His hand was on her cheek, the other tightly clenching the operating table. He smiled shakily at her.

"Hey, girlie," he said softly. "How are you feeling?"

She blinked slowly and gazed around the room. She could see Aunt Temari, her hands tightly clenched over her mouth and tears running down her cheeks. Uncle Gaara was a little closer to the bed, and she could see the blame written all over his face. There was also a pink-haired lady with the same hita-ite as the gentle lady, and Ebizo-sama.

_You will be hated, _Shukaku had told her._ Feared. You are better off dead._

She gazed around her, and then gave Shukaku a good, hard mental shove.

_Things are different, now._ She told him firmly. _You'll see, Sand Rat._

"'M okay, Daddy," she murmured, reaching for his hand and finding it. She looked up at her aunt and uncle and said, louder, "I'm okay, really. I'm still me."

She could see them relax a little, and her uncle's eyes softened almost imperceptibly. He strode over and placed cool, dry fingers on her forehead.

"Of course you are," he said quietly, and she could see him staring at her, through her, at the monster behind her eyes that he knew so well. Shukaku growled far in the back of her mind and Sonya, almost instinctively, snarled back and shoved him further back into her sub conscience. She would not be dominated by an intruder in her own body. She knew who she was and what she was not.

She had nine years on the Sand Rat, after all.

AN: There you, folks. I feel kind of bad, putting Sonya through this. I'm very fond of her. Don't worry, though, she won't turn into some sort of super-ninja. She's just a mouthy girl who now has an equally mouthy demon hanging out in her sub conscience.


	7. Secrets Better Shared

Disclaimer: no ownage here. Except for Tory and Teulah, but we knew that. AN: Am I behind? Yep. Have I written anything for my last two characters that still need to be introduced? Yes. Is it complete? No. Am I writing about already-introduced characters again anyway? Yes. Am I going to regret posting this? Probably. I got really good feedback from the last Inuzuka/Aburame story, which made me very happy :) but one of my friends suggest I turn the tables and develop Teulah a bit from angry child to a stronger kunoichi, and give Tory a humanizing factor, so he would be more person and less a symbol. So...this was created. I seem to have problems writing these two :S Like with Unusual Pack, I'm not 100 satisfied, but we'll see how everyone takes to it. Once again, if you turn it upside down and squint, you MIIIIGHT be able to make out some very mild Shino/Kiba, but it could really just be seen as the close bonds between the members of Team 8. Okay, enough of my rambling. Enjoy :)

Secrets Better Shared

For some reason, she thought he was invincible. Maybe it was because he never seemed to get down about anything. Maybe it was because he met every obstacle with calm and rationale, working his way through the toughest problems, and steering his teammates along with the same dexterity and level-headedness. Maybe it was because she was just extraordinarily stupid, who knew?

She knew now, though, that Inuzukas were not invincible, and Inuzuka Tory, in particular, was as fallible as she.

She noticed the first signs shortly after his thirteenth birthday. He was quieter, but not in a good way. He had always been the quieter of the two of them, but now he was downright WITHDRAWN. Inuzukas were not withdrawn. It was just not part of their nature. Worse, he got irritable when she tried to pry him out of the shell he had crawled into.

The next clue she got was from Shikabi, who had outdoor training with Tory one day. She cornered Teulah after class that day, her normally calm, relaxed posture unusually tense. She silently handed Teulah a kunai streaked with drying blood, blood that had Tory's scent all over it, and jabbed at her forearms, looking slightly frantic.

She looked at Tory's long sleeves with a great deal more nervousness after that.

Something was wrong, that was for sure, but as for what "it" was Teulah was thoroughly stumped. Whenever she approached him about it, Tory would wave her off with, "just a bad day, Tules. Don't worry about it," and his trademark grin. It was hollow, and she hated it. She wanted to scream and beat him over the head, demand he talk to her. They had never kept secrets from each other before; why was he starting now?

She debated taking her concerns to her uncles. Uncle Kiba, she was sure, would know what was wrong with his nephew, right? But, for some reason, she could not bring herself to talk to him. Maybe it was because, occasionally, she saw the same hollowness in his smile, the same worn desperation in his eyes, and it scared the life out of her. She was reluctant to talk to Uncle Shino, though, because he was like her—a bit awkward when it came to dealing with people's emotions. Arguably, she was the better of the two of them in that particular arena. So, yes, Uncle Shino was definitely out.

That left only one person.

"Eh, hi Nariko," She rocked back and forth on her heels, feeling uncharacteristically shy as she stood in the doorway of the main hall of the Hyuuga compound. Hyuuga Nariko, roughly a year older than her, blinked a bit owlishly at the topaz-eyed Aburame who looked ready to bolt.

"Hello, Teulah-chan," Nariko smiled a tiny smile, and was flashed a relieved grin in return. "Were you looking for Hiro?"

"Actually, I was looking for Aunt Hinata…" Teulah was now speaking to the ground, her shoulders slightly hunched. Worry immediately flared up in Nariko's stomach—Teulah only came to talk to Aunt Hinata when she was having issues she could not speak of with her entirely male family. Either something was wrong with Teulah—and it didn't look like it—or something was wrong with Tory. Nariko stepped aside and opened the door wider.

"She's in her office. Come on in."

Teulah followed her down the corridor, coming to a halt before the sliding door to the Head of Clan's office. Nariko slid it open just enough to slip inside, bowed, and said "Aunt Hinata, Aburame Teulah is here to see you." More quietly, she whispered so only her aunt could hear, "I think something's wrong."

"Come in Teulah," Hinata's gentle voice floated through the screen. Nariko stepped out, slid the door further open, and Teulah stepped inside. She heard the door slide quietly shut again, and Nariko's footfalls patter softly away. She looked up and smiled hesitantly at her uncles' teammate, Hyuuga Hinata.

"Hi, Aunt Hinata," she said shyly. "Um, I'm sorry to drop in like this…"

"Nonsense," Hinata said warmly, putting her scroll aside. "I always have time for you, Teulah. How can I help you?"

Her throat closed over, completely blindsiding Teulah with the intensity of her feelings. She wanted to burst into tears, to scream with the fear she felt. Hinata must have sensed the shift in her disposition, because in an instant the kunoichi was at her side, sitting her down on the cushions, and rubbing her back consolingly while dry sobs tore out of her throat.

"Oh, Teulah, darling what's happened?" Hinata asked softly. "What's wrong?"

"T-Tory," she gasped finally, scrubbing furiously at her itching eyes. "Th-there's so-omething wrong w-with Tory." Hinata's hand continued its ministrations on her back and shoulders until Teulah finally drew a complete breath and looked up again. Hinata's calm pearly eyes smiled back at her.

"Can you tell me what you mean by that?"

The story spilled out of her like the bile she heard Tory retching up every night. She meticulously related every moment, every instance in which she felt, no _knew_ the boy was slipping away from her, from the entire family. By the time she was done, Teulah felt achey and exhausted, as if she had just run several marathons. Aunt Hinata's palm was warm on her back, and the calm woman's presence made her feel slightly better. She looked up at her uncles' teammate—and blanched.

Aunt Hinata was crying.

Her head was hung, crystalline tears dripping off her cheeks and onto her other hand, the one clenched in her lap so tightly the knuckles were turning white and her nails were biting into the flesh of her palm. Teulah swallowed, and tried not to panic. Aunt Hinata was upset about this—it must be bad.

A second later, Hinata wiped her eyes and put both hands on Teulah's shoulders. She took a deep breath, let it out, and said "do you remember the day you and Tory blended your chakra?"

Teulah winced. Of course she did. It was filed in her mind as "the day I nearly killed myself and nearly got Tory killed in the process". But whatever. She nodded.

"Do you remember how Uncle Shino reacted to what you told him?"

"He yelled," Teulah replied softly, suppressing a shiver. It was the most terrifying thing she had ever been exposed to. Thank goodness he had never yelled since.

"Yes," Aunt Hinata agreed softly, "he did. That was the second time he has ever yelled, _ever_, in his life."

Teulah's head jerked up. She sensed information was coming. "Second?"

Hinata nodded gravely.

"Your uncle does not express fear and concern well. Usually, he is quiet about it, but sometimes the concern is so great, the fear is so real, that he has no other choice but to voice it." Hinata's smile became wry. "Loudly."

She shifted, sitting cross-legged in front of the girl, and laced her fingers together under her chin.

"Do you know who Shino yelled at the very first time he ever yelled at someone?"

Teulah shook her head.

"Kiba."

"_What_?"

Hinata nodded again.

"But…why?"

Hinata sighed and looked up at the ceiling, as if asking some unseen deity hidden in the beams for assistance. Teulah waited.

"You know how the Inuzuka have very heightened senses," Teulah nodded in response to the prompt. "Well, that particular ability is both a blessing and a curse. When we were about fifteen and sixteen, Kiba had developed his hearing and sense of smell so well, he could hear and smell things that dogs sometimes could not. It was really useful in missions, but…it had its drawbacks."

"What kinds?" Teulah asked, slightly wary. Hinata looked at her again, and her eyes were sad.

"What do you suppose hatred smells like, Teulah?" She asked softly. "Fear? Rage? Despair? Do you know what abuse and neglect sound like? Or lies?" She shook her head. "Kiba knew everything, _everything_, about Konoha because of his senses. He knew every dark and horrible thing that was transpiring around us, things that Shino and I never even knew existed because our senses didn't go that far. He could hear the whispers and insults that people fired at each other behind others backs, and he could smell the malice, and jealousy, and all the other ugly things that start wars and tear up families." Hinata's hands became fists again and she looked away. "He could smell my loneliness, my feelings of inadequacy, and he could smell Shino's feeling of isolation, his sadness. And he blamed himself for it. For _all_ of it."

Teulah's throat ached again. She tried to swallow, failed, and rubbed her eyes again.

"Why?" She finally choked out. Hinata snorted.

"No idea. But it ate at him. Constantly. He started…he started to do what you're describing in Tory. He pulled away from us—maybe he thought he would smell and hear less if he pulled away from everything around him—and every time we tried to talk to him, he hid behind that cheery smile and a joke. It was so fake, I wanted to smack him every time. He also took to writing everything down—every one of Konoha's secrets. He would write it anywhere he could—in the dirt, on his skin—and then he would hide it. Wipe the dirt clean, or wear long sleeves—because they were _secrets_ and as much as it was killing him to keep them, he wasn't about to give al those secrets away.

"It got so bad, though. He stopped eating properly, he didn't sleep at all, and he wouldn't talk to us. Not to me, and not to Shino, which scared the hell out of us both, because Shino was his best friend," Hinata sighed and shook her head. "So one day, we were training. Kiba was wearing a jacket, even though it was ridiculously warm out, and he was sparring with me. I had had my suspicions for a while, so when I struck him, I yanked the jacket off.

"It was…really painful, Teulah. Horrible. They're gone now, but his arms and shoulders were covered with scars. Words. He had written all over himself. I cried—I always cried then when I got a shock that bad. But Shino…Shino just stared for a minute, like he couldn't believe what he was seeing. And then," Hinata rubbed her eyes and smiled ruefully.

"And then, he grabbed Kiba by the shirt, pinned him against a tree, and _screamed_. He yelled and yelled and yelled, calling Kiba every sort of idiot I can think of, and some I can't. He yelled at him for not coming to us, for not trusting us enough to talk to us, for shutting us out—for shutting _him_ out. And the whole time I was in tears because the whole thing was scaring me so badly, and Kiba was staring, just staring…" Hinata wiped her eyes and ran a hand through her hair.

"We dragged him to the hospital and Shino stayed with him through the night. He told me to go to the store and get a notebook—something Kiba would like to write in. We gave it to him, and Shino told him to write the secrets there, instead of on himself. He also told him that if he ever did something that…that stupid again, Shino was going to kill him, because didn't he realize that he only made our pain worse by pulling away?"

Teulah stared vacantly at the ground. So, this had happened before. She wasn't going crazy, there was actually something up with Tory. And by the sound of it, if she didn't do something, it was only going to get worse.

"What should I do?" She asked in a tiny voice. Hinata blew out a gusty breath and leaned back on her hands.

"Keep after him, Teulah. I don't know if he is having the same problem Kiba had, but it apparently happens pretty frequently in the Inuzuka Clan. Let him know you're there, and that shutting you out isn't going to help anything."

"Should I…should I tell Uncle Kiba and Uncle Shino?"

Hinata wrinkled her nose, thinking.

"Yes," she said finally. "I'll speak to them, too. I've been meaning to…Hiro has been noticing some oddities too, and I was already a bit worried. Now I'm definitely going to talk to them."

Teulah nodded absently, the gears in her head whirling at top speed. She stood abruptly, suddenly feeling more certain about things than she had in a long time. Hinata looked up at her, surprised, but with understanding already sparking in her eyes.

"Thank you so much for your help, Aunt Hinata," She said breathlessly, bowing. "I'm going…I'm going to go to the store. I'll see you later. Thank you!"

And she hurtled away.

Later that evening, she found Tory on the roof of the house, staring up into the orange sunset. He was, she saw, twirling a kunai around his fingers. She hoisted herself through the window and scrambled up the shingles until she was sitting beside the boy. He glanced at her around the collar of Uncle Shino's old jacket, which he wore a lot lately, and smiled faintly at her.

"Hey, Teulah-nee,"

"Hey yourself."

They lapsed into silence for a few minutes, Tory still spinning his kunai and Teulah fidgeting with the package in her hands. Finally, she sighed loudly and slapped a hand down on the roof.

"Take off the jacket."

He froze.

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me," her voice was sharp, angry, like it had been when they were very small and she still hated the world. It was the voice no one argued with. "Jacket. Off. Now."

Tory eyed her warily.

"And if I say no?"

"I rip the damn thing off you and you have no more jacket. You know I will, too."

Tory growled low in his throat, but complied. The jacket came off, leaving him in only his mesh shirt and black undershirt. His arms, but for the mesh, were fully exposed. Teulah stared silently.

Just like Hinata had described. Words, small and tidy, swirling up and down his arms. Some were old and white, others were fresher—still pink and angry-looking. Tory stared fixedly at the roof, looking angry, humiliated, and very near tears. Teulah held out one hand.

"Kunai."

"Oh for--!"

She grabbed the back of his neck and yanked him towards her.

"_Now_," she hissed into his ear. He growled again and handed the blade over to her. She tucked it into her holster and handed him back his jacket, which he quickly pulled over himself like a shield. Now Teulah gazed up at the sky, marshalling her thoughts. When she looked down again, she could see Tory watching her, waiting for her response, for her anger. She sighed.

"What does it smell like?"

He blinked, completely taken aback.

"Fear," she clarified. "Hatred, jealousy, secrets. What do they smell like? What do they sound like?"

Understanding slowly crept over his face and his eyes dimmed painfully. Unconsciously, she scooted closer to him and put an arm around his shoulders as he put his chin on his drawn knees.

"Like ashes," he said finally, his voice tiny and scared. "Like ashes, and blood, and poison. It sounds like dying screams, like shouting, and crying." He rubbed first his nose, and then his ears violently, as if he would rub them clean off. She gently grabbed his hands and set them back around his knees, then put her own head on his shoulder. They sat like that, Tory shivering and Teulah hugging him tightly, for what felt like an eternity.

Finally, Teulah placed the package on his knees and put a pencil on top of it.

"Maybe this will be a suitable alternative to your arms?"

He pulled the paper off, and stared down at the burgundy leather book in front of him. He stroked the cover with a finger and then looked at her, questions all over his face. Teulah shrugged.

"You are a horrible actor. Hiro and I have been worrying ourselves into a frenzy. I really wish you'd talk to us, talk to _me_—we've never hid things from each other before—but if you can't yet, then talk to this. It'll keep your secrets, even those that aren't really yours. But I'd really like my brother back, if possible." She felt her throat close over again and shook her head once, ordering herself to be the strong one this time.

"I kind of really miss him."

There was a moment of silence, and then Teulah grunted with surprise as Tory threw his arms around her, knocking her over. Almost as quickly as he had done it, he let go again, wiping his eyes. He smiled a tiny, tired, but genuine smile at her—not that wide, fake grin of past weeks—and nodded.

"Yeah, I kind of really miss him, too."

Then he opened the book, picked up the pencil, and started writing. Teulah lay back on the roof and gazed at the purpling sky as Tory told the book all the secrets that had been slowly eating at him. Neither child noticed they were being watched.

Kiba slowly let out a sigh that was more of a groan and thumped his head gently against the wall. By the second thump, he felt someone place a hand between his forehead and the wall. Opening his eyes, he saw Shino giving him a look and he stopped, smiling wryly.

"Sorry." He was not just talking about the head-to-wall action.

"Not your fault," the Aburame replied simply. "But we will need to be watchful. I will not sit by and watch it get that…bad, again."

Hinata shook her head and smiled.

"I don't think it will, Shino-kun. I think it was headed off early enough this time. Hiro has been on guard for weeks now—he talks to Nariko about it a lot, and she tells me. Teulah's been watching for a while, too. It will be alright." She grasped both her teammate's hands and gave Kiba a good, appraising look.

"How are you doing, anyway?"

Kiba shrugged and ran his free hand through his hair. He knew better, had known since he was sixteen and Shino nearly put him through a tree, that lying to these two was a Very Bad Idea.

"Good days, and bad days. More good than bad, though," He smiled at Shino and felt Hinata squeeze both their hands fondly. "The notebook is damn useful." His face softened and he tugged Hinata toward him, spinning her so he was between the two of them, one arm around each. He nuzzled them both playfully.

"Have I ever told you two how much I love you?" The tone was light, but they knew he meant it. Hinata nuzzled him back, and Shino just smiled fondly and squeezed the hand on his shoulder.

Secrets were always better shared with loved ones.

AN: gaaragghhhh. Poor Tory. Poor Kiba. I didn't mean to make it so damn DARK! And yet, I think it worked. Weirdly. Barely. But it did. x.X Okay, need to actually work on my last two as-of-yet-unintroduced characters as opposed to writing more on characters you already know. Bye everyone .


	8. Another Word for Friend

Disclaimer: Me no own anyone whose name you recognize. Therefore, I own Rock Kento, Hyuuga Nariko, and Iori (Tenten's son, but I don't know her last name, so...) AN: So, I was going through TTCF and I realized something...my themes were becoming slowly, but progressively, darker. I am systematically putting my poor OCs and the Naruto cast through hell dies sorry about that. Anyway, this plotlet attacked me at three AM this morning while I was trying to work on a paper for one of my Lit classes. It's light, it's funny, and it's pointless. The funny thing here, is that the boys remind me A LOT of my little brothers :D I hope everyone likes it alright--it's pretty different from the stuff I've been doing lately.

Another Word For Friend

Someone once said that competition strengthened friendships, and that rivalry was what created some of the strongest bonds between people. The human desire to be better, to be the _best_, would destroy us if we did not have our friends, our rivals, to keep us sane. Rivalries, then, were definitely a good thing.

Usually.

"GodDAMN it, Kento, if you weren't my best friend, I think I would hate you."

At least, Kento was fairly sure that's what he heard. It was hard to tell—the speaker's face was buried in the dirt and his neck was wrapped up in Kento's arm.

"Sorry?" He queried, genuinely curious. He slackened his viselike grip slightly, and the brunette head under him snapped up, crashing directly into his nose. He fell back with a cry of pain, and found himself pinned to the dusty ground, his rival's kunai poised over his already stinging face.

"You," Iori told him matter-of-factly, "make my life difficult."

"And yet you rise to every occasion so magnificently!" Kento shot the shorter boy a beaming smile. "Just what I would expect of my greatest rival!"

Iori groaned. Kento took the moment's distraction to flip them again, this time successfully completing his headlock. Iori grunted and twisted, trying to free himself. Kento simply clung tighter, clamping down on the boy's back like a turtle shell. He could hear Iori swearing and muttering something about "damn barnacle-people" and "going to dismember him with the bluntest kunai I can find", and could not help but to laugh.

"I love you too, Iori."

"Boys!"

The two immediately froze, and two pairs of guilty eyes turned to one Hyuuga Nariko, who stood at the edge of the sparring circle, her arms crossed and her foot tapping with something that looked a bit like exasperation.

"What are you doing?" She asked sweetly. Kento swallowed, and he could feel Iori cringing underneath him. Oh, they were going to get it now…

"Um…"

"It looks like your roughhousing," she said helpfully, her opalescent eyes shining severely. Kento quickly unlatched himself from Iori's back and the two of them stood up, turning steadily redder.

"We were…." Kento stammered, beating the dust out of his black bowl cut. "We were…"

"We were practicing our grappling," Iori cut in smoothly, shooting Kento a look that told him to shut his mouth Or Else. "I've been having a lot of trouble escaping rear attacks, and Kento has been helping me. He IS the strongest, physically, in our group after all."

Nariko nodded, accepting the story, and sauntered over to the wooden striking post. Meticulously, she picked the various kunai, kama, shuriken, and other sharp pointy objects out of the wood and tossed them gently to the boys.

"Well, you've clearly been working on Iori's weakness for a while—your chakra is all over the place. Take a few minutes breather and then we'll get to work on Kento's weak spot." She smiled widely as Kento took his turn to groan. He really had a problem with weapons. The problem being that he was more likely to cut off his own head, rather than his opponent's.

The boys flopped into the dust again, companionably sharing the canteen Iori had brought with him and watching Nariko as she ran through her jyuuken kata. They couldn't exactly help her with it—both boys knew the strikes of the kaiten from watching her, but neither of them could match her speed. Iori vaguely considered giving her some actual arsenal to deflect with her chakra-laced palms, but decided against it after Kento pointed out that anything thrown from their location would probably come shooting back at twice the speed.

A few minutes later, Kento hopped to his feet, clearly recovered, and said cheerfully, "okay, my rival! Let us resume our training! I will hit the bulls-eye today for sure!"

He said that every time.

Several hours and close calls later, dusk had fully fallen and Nariko declared the practice over.

"Aw, I was just getting warmed up!" Iori complained. Nariko snorted.

"You can barely see the target. Kento CAN'T see the target. I don't want to drag either of you to the hospital again."

"My mother is working tonight!" Kento chirped. "She would fix us up in no time!"

"Kento," Nariko said patiently, "I don't want to go to the hospital BECAUSE your mother is there. One, she terrifies me. Two, I don't think she'd like to see both of you in there with potentially life-threatening injuries."

"Nonsense! We are all fortified by the power of our you--!"

"Say it and I will cut off all chakra to your vocal chords!"

Iori hastily slapped a hand over his friend's mouth. Nariko smiled her saccharine smile again.

"Okay, boys, I'm heading home before my father has an attack and turns the village on its head looking for me. Have a good evening, I'll see you tomorrow, please don't kill each other in the meantime."

With that, and a wave, Nariko sprinted off. The boys were alone again.

"Hey, Kento?" Iori asked after a few moment of silence.

"Yeah?"

"We're friends, right?"

"Of course!" Kento gave the boy a strange look. "Did I cut off your oxygen supply for too long?"

"No-o," Iori glowered. "I was just wondering…why do you keep calling me a rival? Technically, rivals can't be friends."

"Says who??"

"Um….the dictionary."

Kento sighed and shook his head at his friend's ignorance.

"The _best_ rivals are our friends, Iori! Look at my father and Neji-sensei! They are excellent rivals! Look at Gai-sensei and Kakashi-sensei! _They_ are rivals—have been since they were our age!"

"But why be rivals?" Iori asked curiously. The boys started moving around, gathering Iori's weapons and Kento's training gear. When they had accumulated everything, they started walking down the darkened road towards the Rock household, where Iori was spending the night while his mother, along with Kento's father and Neji-sensei, were on a mission.

Kento frowned, thinking carefully over his answer.

"Well…"He shrugged. "Dad is always telling me that having a healthy rivalry strengthens the power of our youth. Mom says rivalries help you work to better yourself and your friends. I figure that if I want to be the best ninja in Konoha, I need to work hard at it. I'm great at taijutsu, and physically I can overpower most of our classmates, and my genjutsu skills are pretty good. My biggest weakness is my long-range ability. Weapons. Now, WHO do we all know was practically born with a kunai in his hand?" Kento gave Iori a pointed look and Iori laughed.

"Okay, okay. So you compete with me so you become better with weapons?"

"Not just that!" Kento gasped, aghast. "By competing with you, I help you improve _your_ talents! You are indeed the next weapon master of Konoha, your mother's true prodigy, and your ninjutsu and genjutsu are formidable. But, let's face it, Iori: you're not that great at close-range combat."

"You're too kind. I _suck_ at it."

"No, you sucked before we started working together. Now you just…struggle. A lot." Kento flashed him another beaming smile and Iori returned it with his own smaller smile, and a laugh.

"You're weird, Rock Kento."

"Damn straight," he replied with a completely straight face and a wink of one bright green eye. He fished his key out of his backpack and let the two of them into his house. His father was away on the same mission, and his mother was at the hospital. They had the house to themselves, at least for a few hours.

"Food?" He suggested. Iori nodded emphatically. They were traipsing to the kitchen when the weapons master delivered his final verdict.

"No stupid contests, Kento."

"You're no fun!"

"_Kento_--!"

"Okay, okay. No contests, stupid or otherwise." Kento stuck his tongue out at the boy and ducked the throwing star that was pitched at him. Iori rolled his eyes.

"Man, if you weren't my best friend, I think I would hate you."

"But I _am_ your best friend, so you have nothing to wor—that's what you said earlier!" Kento thrust a finger in Iori's face, his own visage triumphant. "When I had you pinned the first time; that's what you said!"

Iori rolled his eyes and threw another star. A wooden spoon was thrown in retaliation. Iori dodged unnecessarily—the spoon flew several feet to the left of him and imbedded itself firmly in the wall. He studied it, poked it, and shook his head.

"You know, with your strength, you wouldn't even need actual weapons to fight long range. If only you had some _aim_!"

"Hey, I tried. You want to go into a headlock again?"

"Nariko said no killing until tomorrow."

"Right. Forgot about that."

The boys' eyes met, and they simultaneously burst into fits of laughter. When it finally died down, they surveyed the kitchen, and then each other.

"First one to Ichiraku's wins."

"Loser buys?"

"Of course!"

"You're on!"

They crashed back through the front door, pushing and tripping each other as they raced to the ramen stand. They threw all they had into their race, the way they threw all they had into every competition.

After all, "rival" was another word for "friend", and they were the best of those.


	9. Midnight Snack

Disclaimer: Blacknbluesiren does not own Naruto.

AN: I know, I'm on a roll!! I think its because I took a nap (and consequently missed karate, but at least I got my lit paper done...) Like "Another Word For Friend" this one is a bit lighter (though, it has its serious moments). It's the Sand Sibs again, this time from Jax's POV, because I've written a oneshot from both Cain and Sonya's POVS and I think Jax was feeling neglected :S This will probably be the last oneshot I do of the Sand Sibs children before I do my last two fics (which are a surprise :P) I hope everyone enjoys this!

Midnight Snack

Jax wandered into the kitchen, feeling his way around in the dark until he found the light switch. It was late….er….early, depending on what school of thought you followed, but he found sleep was completely eluding him. It often did in the late summer, when it NEVER seemed to cool down. Jax climbed up onto a stool and surveyed the contents of the pantry. He nodded sagely and started grabbing things off the shelves.

The three cousins had different ways of dealing with the problems in their lives. Cain trained for hours, working himself into exhaustion, and then took a nap. Sonya, since all her problems seemed to stem from the demon trapped inside her, could stand in front of a mirror and yell at her reflection for hours, then walk away and read a book cover to cover. Jax would cook at all hours of day and night. The more food appeared in the house, the more stressed out he was about something.

He was planning on cooking a LOT tonight.

He was eleven years old. He considered this fact as he hunted down a pot. One more year, and he would be eligible to test for genin status. One more year, and then a new team of Suna nin could embark on their journey to protect Sunagakure and its people. Jax could barely wait. He knew Cain and Sonya couldn't wait, either. When the Shukaku was sealed inside Sonya, it had taken FOREVER for her system to adjust to the new presence. She had been bedridden for nearly eight months, and restricted to the compound for another five. She was still forbidden to use any chakra techniques, for all her chakra reserves had to concentrate on healing her damaged body and adjust to the rampaging tanuki inside of her. As a result, Sonya, now just clear of her twelfth birthday, was not allowed to test for genin status, and instead had to wait and retrain herself. Cain, the oldest at thirteen, had tested and passed, but opted to wait on official genin status until the other two had caught up to him.

It was, to put it simply, REALLY FRUSTRATING.

He turned on the stove, splashed some oil into the pot, and threw on some spices to sauté while he assessed his other ingredients. He rolled his eyes—clearly Aunt Temari had done the shopping last, if the profusion of vegetables was any indication.

Yep, tonight was a korma night. Definitely.

There was a distant crashing sound far above him, but Jax did not flinch. He had not done so in more than a year now. She was okay. She always was.

(_He remembered waking up every time he heard a thump, a scream. He remembered flying up the stairs, only to get tackled halfway by his father or his uncle. He remembered them dragging him back down, deaf to his pleas the way they seemed to be deaf to the shouting and sobbing on the other side of the door.)_

He threw slices of peppers, carrots, and other colorful vegetables into the pot and went to the fridge to hunt down cream. Far above, there was another crash, and the sound of muffled cursing. He glanced up at the ceiling, frowning. It had been a while since it had been this noisy. He hoped neither his dad nor his aunt or uncle would wake up.

(_The thumping and shouting came less often, or did he just learn to sleep through it? He visited during the day, and she smiled at him—a grin of sunshine in the sterile, safe room that had been created while she healed. He could see the dents in the wall, the gouges in the floor, and the scratches and sand burns that covered her arms and legs. Still, she grinned, because she had survived another night. So Jax grinned back at her.)_

The korma simmered in the pot, the delicious aromas of spices filling the kitchen. Jax glanced at the clock and pursed his lips slightly—two hours had passed. Soon, his father would be awake. They were a family of early risers.

He heard a splash from upstairs.

He quickly turned the stove down and took the stairs three at a time, remembering at the last second to grab one of the knives from the chopping block (_just in case_). He could hear footsteps behind him, and knew someone was following him towards the sound of the splashing. He raced by one of the hall windows, and his blood ran cold as he caught a glimpse of the full, silvery moon.

_Shit._ He had forgotten about that.

(_He stood at the bottom of the stairs, moonlight slanting across his feet. He could hear the steady dripping of liquid off the stairs in front of him, but he could not make sense of it. Water wasn't red. And it wasn't that thick. His gaze lifted, and he saw her at the top of the stairs. Her shoulders were heaving, and her eyes were too bright—they shone eerily, like the eyes of an animal; twin full moons reflected back at him. The red water ran down her front, down her legs, and from her mouth. Even the little tendrils of sand that swirled around her, scraping her constantly, seemed damp with the red water. He stood and stared at her, even as his aunt hurtled past him, yelling what happened, what happened, and she said he's winning tonight. It'll be better in the morning. He can't beat me up forever. Jax wondered when red water became an implement of torture.)_

He skidded to a halt in front of the door, seized the doorknob, and twisted. Nothing, the damn thing was locked. He was shoved aside and heard Cain hiss a jutsu under his breath. A blade of wind knocked the doorknob clean out of its socket and they shoved their way into the room.

She wasn't there. This much was obvious from the decided lack of destruction in the room. They heard another splash, this one coming from the bathroom adjoining the room, and the boys glanced at each other. Jax approached the partially closed door cautiously. He raised his hand to knock, and heard a laugh from the other side.

"S'okay, boys, you can come in. It's safe."

He glanced back at Cain, who shrugged, clearly baffled. Jax pushed the door open and peeked inside.

She sat in the bathtub, up nearly to her chin in water. She was still fully clothed in light cotton pants and a t-shirt, and her dark braid hung like a thick dark brown snake down her back. She plugged her nose and slid under water, fully submerging herself, and came up coughing and laughing.

"Um…Sonya…?"

"Sorry," she traced a finger through the water and smiled reassuringly at the two of them. "It's okay, I swear. Sand Rat isn't a fan of water—his sand turns to mud and he can't use it anymore. I'm hanging out in here until he settles down and stops trying to gut me." She dunked herself again, and Jax wondered if she was doing it to shut up the raging voice in her head. She came up again, shook the water from her eyes and sniffed the air.

"Is something burning?"

Jax hurtled out of the room, swearing viciously under his breath. He cleared the stairs in two bounds and skidded back into the kitchen. He pulled the pot off the stove and surveyed its contents with a relieved sigh—minimal damage. He heard feet on the stairs and looked up to see Cain, yawning as his exhaustion caught up with him, and Sonya, now wrapped up tightly in one of her father's old shirts, some shorts, and a large towel.

"We do live in a desert, you know," Cain was mumbling, his eyes half-closed. "Y'can't use water like that."

"Why no, I didn't know," Sonya gasped sarcastically, before rolling her eyes. "And that's the first time I've ever done that—hey Jax."

Jax waved his spoon at her and Cain opened one eye.

"What are you cooking?"

"Smells good, whatever it is," Sonya commented. Jax shrugged and grinned at them both.

"Want some?"

They sat in a circle on the floor with their bowls—Cain had dropped to the floor where he stood, declaring he was too tired to bother with silly formalities like tables. Jax tasted the korma, which he had poured over white rice, and nodded with satisfaction.

"Man, you made enough to feed an army," Cain pointed out, eyeing the pot critically. "You okay?"

Sonya, chopsticks halfway to her mouth, slowed down to listen to the answer. Jax shrugged.

"Been thinking."

"Oh good," Cain said sarcastically. "I'm glad to hear your brain is still functioning on some level at least." Sonya elbowed him.

"You can't be that tired," she snipped. "You're using sarcasm."

"Oh shut up."

Jax rolled his eyes and continued.

"I have one more year of Academy and then I can test for genin status."

There was a pause, and then Sonya whistled under her breath.

"Wow, you're right. That went by fast." She put her chopsticks down, her face scrunched up as she did the math in her head. "You know, if you pass at that exam time, you'll become a genin practically on your birthday! Cool!" She beamed at him, and then squeaked and clapped a hand over her mouth. Around her fingers, she mumbled "I just bit into a pepper….or something….ow…"

"When are you going back to Academy, anyway?" Cain asked her, gesturing with his chopsticks. "If we want to be on the same team, we have to graduate at least ROUGHLY the same time."

Jax got up and refilled bowls, listening as Sonya mulled over her answer.

"I heard Dad talking about it with Uncle Gaara…I think they're hoping the doctors will let me go back to Academy by winter."

"Really?" Cain took back his bowl and shoved more korma and rice into his mouth. "tha's awshum."

"Swallow, pig," Jax grumbled.

"Sorry, jeez. That's awesome, Sonya."

"Un," The girl shrugged and stirred her food around, dark green eyes troubled. "It'll be awesome if I can keep Sand Rat from being a jackass and trying to kill someone."

Cain winced and Jax had to remind himself to relax so not to snap his chopsticks in half. Sonya took another bite of her meal, face thoughtful.

"I mean, it's one thing here at home. You guys are my family—he knows you're off-limits. When he first got sealed inside me, he'd try to knock me out long enough to flatten the house, but I'd fight back until we both got exhausted. School's different, though—so many people."

Jax mulled over this for a few minutes. His cousin had a point—Shukaku was known for being cunning, sneaky. Sonya had pretty admirable control over his actions, but she had also been solely focused on controlling him for the past year and a half. At school, her attention would be split a million different ways as she tried to catch up with the other students. He could see why she was worried. He was about to open his mouth, but Cain beat him to it.

"You've had the Ichibi in you for over a year now," the blond boy declared. Sonya gave him a look.

"Your powers of observation continue to overwhelm me with awe," she drawled.

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that. You've been a jinchuuruki for over a year now, but you haven't really been _living_. You've been here in the compound, waiting, existing--"

"Healing," Jax reminded him testily.

"Yes, that too. My point, though, is that you aren't going to learn to develop as a jinchuuruki if you stay in here forever. You have to learn to control Shukaku around others sooner or later. Better to do it now, if you ask me. No point putting that sort of thing off."

The two younger cousins gaped first at each other, and then at Cain.

"Who are you and what have you done with Cain?" Sonya finally squeaked. She ducked the swinging arm and scrambled away as Cain gave chase. Jax watched his cousins chase each other around the kitchen, smiling wryly as he finished his korma.

If they became a genin team together, they were going to be one of the craziest (and, admittedly, well –fed) teams Suna had ever seen. Jax was looking forward to it.

AN: "Korma" is an Indian dish, with a lightly spicy flavor and lots of veggies. I decided to use it because a. it goes great on rice, b. its my comfort food, and c. I read somewhere that people in desert climates cook a lot of spicy food because it encourages the apetite (heat suppresses it) and the spiciness necessitates the consumption of LOTS of water, thus preventing dehydration. Cool? I thought so :D


	10. Widespread Brightness

Disclaimer: Blacknbluesiren does not own Naruto! The end!

A/N: I am so sorry . life got insanely busy. I didn't stop writing for TTCF, but I never actually managed to POST anything! Horrible, I know!

This ficlet tackles the relationship between the Hyuuga children, but this time more from Hiro's POV because I didn't really give him much depth in the last Hyuuga centric story. Not 100 satisfied with it, but it turned out better than I originally feared

Widespread Brightness

Names had a very strong significance in the Hyuuga household. Hinata meant "sunshine", Hanabi "fireworks". In the House of the Rising Sun, light was a nearly indelible symbol. Even Hiro, whose name meant "widespread brightness" was part of that symbolic tradition.

He wondered, then, why his cousin was named for thunder.

He supposed it was because of her presence. It was impossible not to notice Nariko. For one thing, she was beautiful: a prime example of a Hyuuga kunoichi. Only twelve, she was already tall and willowy, with a long fall of dark hair, sharp angular features, and prominent pearly eyes. Hiro was both proud of her and exasperated—it was incredibly difficult to be fending off curious boys at all hours of the day when they were at Academy. For another, she was _loud_. Not vocally, for it was unbecoming of a Hyuuga to rant and scream, but when Nariko spoke her voice carried and people _listened_. She had an unquestionable air of authority about her and people knew better than to contradict her.

He also supposed it could be because of her style of fighting. Nariko, for whatever reason, could not do anything gently. This surprised many, for her father was a master of the Gentle Fist technique, gliding like air with his every movement. For the longest time, Nariko could not master this technique, largely because she was too forceful, too loud. Hiro would watch her practice and practice, destroying practice dummy after practice dummy with strikes that were too wild, too hard, too misdirected. She was thunderous.

Hiro knew that, for the longest time, his mother was looked down upon by the Clan. She was seen as meek, timid, and a failure because she did not have a hateful bone in her body. He also knew that his uncle had held a certain measure of disdain for her, angry that his talent was hindered by the curse seal that used to cause so many problems in the clan. Hiro rubbed the white scar on his forehead and smiled mirthlessly. His mother had done away with the curse seal as soon as she ascended position as Clan Head, and then had very firmly done away with anyone who opposed her in that respect.

His mother was also quite accomplished with the lighter arts of the Hyuuga fighting style. She flowed like water, with precise chakra control and a fluidity of motion that was envied by many. Hiro had inherited that affinity to be like water, a talent for which he was grateful every day because he was _not_ a strong hitter, and needed that precise chakra control to be an effective opponent.

When he thought about it carefully, he realized that he and Nariko complemented each other. She was thunderous, a hard hitter, blindingly fast, but lacking in precision. He was liquid light, flitting and dancing and killing with careful hits, but lacking in force needed to launch a direct attack.

Interesting.

Hiro ducked under the awning of the dojo and looked out in to the courtyard. It was early fall, and a cold drizzle was keeping most of Konoha's citizens inside where it was warm and dry. However, most was not all, and Hiro could only shake his head and smile.

Thunder rumbled overhead, and Nariko rumbled across the ground, every strike of her hands sending up a shower of wood chips and sawdust as she decimated one post after another. Chakra exploded from her fingertips, rendering them raw and bloody. Hiro winced as she plowed one hand through a particularly thick post—had it been a human body, the chakra overload probably would have caused it to explode. As it was, he watched wood and water fly across the courtyard as Nariko stumbled to a halt, cradling her now injured hand. Hiro took this as his cue to enter.

"Nariko?"

She looked up, strands of dark hair falling out of her ponytail and into her face, and smiled grimly.

"Hey. Is Aunt Hinata around? I think I broke my hand again." She held up the damaged appendage and Hiro winced. The fingers were curled in painfully, and he could see the burns where too much chakra had exploded from the tenketsu. He shook his head.

"She's in a meeting with the Hokage right now. Come on, I'll take you to the clinic." He offered her his arm and she took it with her uninjured hand.

"Ever the gentleman, huh?"

He just smiled at her and she grinned back.

"We need to think of a different training method for you," he commented off-handedly as they walked down the muddy road. Beside him, he felt Nariko tense, and then sigh with something like defeat.

"No kidding. I'm not improving at all."

"I wouldn't say that," Hiro shook his head. "Your aim has improved dramatically and your strikes are certainly deadly—please don't put your hand through anyone's chest at the Academy, though, that'd be hard to explain." She chuckled, winced at the pain it caused her hand, and nudged him with her hip in a silent admonishment. Hiro continued.

"You just fight a bit differently than Uncle Neji or Mother, or me for that matter. We'll just have to modify the Gentle Fist a bit to make it work for you. Mother did it. We just have to find a way to incorporate your hard-hitting with chakra control so that you aren't ruining your hands every time you hit something."

"That would be nice," Nariko agreed as they reached the clinic. Hiro pulled the door open for her and they ducked in out of the rain. While Hiro went to sign her in, Nariko took a seat on the bench and observed.

He lived up to his name. Hiro was small, even by Hyuuga standards. Slight in stature and quiet in temperament, he had a frail look about him. People tended to dismiss him as weak, at first. It was one of the reasons she liked her cousin so—he was deceptively strong. Nariko appreciated the art of deception, being the ninja-in-training she was. More, though, she appreciated his kindness, his good nature. Hyuuga children were naturally competitive, and more than once she had observed, and even partaken, in sparring with her cousin and plowing him through the dirt. Every time, he would climb back to his feet, a smile on his face, and get back into fighting stance. He held no grudges and bore no bitterness towards anyone who beat him (many could). Likewise, he did not gloat over those he could beat, instead helping them in his own quiet way so they could themselves improve.

Yes, it wasn't his skills as a ninja that endeared her cousin to her so. It was his humanity—he had all the best traits of it.

He turned to look at her, brandishing the yellow slip that proved she would soon be looked at, and her eyes traitorously slid up to his forehead, where the faint, white scar stood out to her like a signal beacon. The seal had been incomplete, so Hiro was safe from any of its affects, but the scar would be there forever. It was like a badge, a symbol of the vestiges of the old Hyuuga Clan, the one that clung desperately to its double standards. Hiro never covered it, though, and wore it proudly as a mark of someone who had stepped in the way of "tradition" to help usher in the new Hyuuga Clan. Like she had when she was five, Nariko thought he was brave. His bravery made her brave, and she in turn, she knew, made her classmates brave. He really was widespread brightness.

Hiro dropped into the plastic seat beside her and studied the paper.

"Sakura-san is in the clinic today, so you'll probably see her." He smiled sympathetically as Nariko groaned and covered her eyes with her undamaged hand. It was a well-kept secret between the two of them that Nariko was a little afraid of Haruno Sakura. Actually, if she had to be honest, she was a little afraid of the whole family. Between Sakura, who had superhuman strength, her husband the taijutsu master Rock Lee, who had great strength and superhuman speed, and their son, her teammate Kento (who, unsurprisingly, had _both_ talents), they made one REALLY formidable family. They were the nicest people either of them knew, but the pink-haired kunoichi still scared Nariko to some degree.

"Don't worry, Nariko-nee," he teased gently. "I'll go with you and protect you from any deadly stethoscopes."

She kicked his shin with the side of her foot and stuck her tongue furtively out at him. He glanced around, surmised that no one was watching who could reprimand them, and stuck his tongue back out at her. She giggled.

"Hyuuga Nariko?" A kunoichi with short pink hair stepped through the door, holding a clipboard in hand. She smiled at Nariko, who smiled nervously back. Hiro stepped up behind her, like a steady rock, and she felt more at ease.

"Hi, Sakura-san," she said sheepishly, holding up her broken hand. Sakura huffed with fond exasperation and ushered the two Hyuugas down the hall, Nariko following with her hand cradled to her chest, and Hiro at her side, one hand at the middle of her back as a guide and the other at her elbow to support the damaged appendage. She glanced at her cousin, and he beamed at her. Nariko found herself beaming back.

Hiro lived up to his name well.


	11. The Gentle Giant

Disclaimer: No ownage of Naruto. If you recognize the character, it isn't mine.

AN: oh my god, the amount of apologies I would have to say to make up for my disappearance would take up a document in and of itself. So, suffice with this: I'M SORRY I WAS GONE SO LONG!! Seriously, I am. I am further sorry for this particular chapter of TTCF...not my best, but I've been trying and trying to get into Nora's head and this literally was the best I could come up with. All previous attempts were even worse than this! Still, I hope to start updating this with more regularity again and get some more one-shots up aside from TTCF as well.

The Gentle Giant/A Lack of Grace

She really wasn't sure what frustrated her more: the fact that she was terrified of the life-course laid before her, or the fact that she knew what she had to do to dispel that terror, but seemed simply incapable of acting upon it.

Nora, did not want to be a shinobi.

She was not graceful, she was not fast, she was not silent. She could not master the arts of the kunoichi if her life depended on it and she could not, not, _not_ fight. Even stepping into the sparring ring rendered her frozen with panic and completely useless.

"Gun-shy," they called her. "Useless and gun-shy."

It hurt to hear that, not because it meant she was failing now, but because she had never been useless or frightened when she was little. When she was younger, Nora had commanded her talents and her peers with ease. She had been the biggest kid on the playground, but also the gentlest, and that had made her strong. Everyone used to tell her what a good kunoichi she would be one day. It hurt, now, to see those same people disappointed in her performance.

"Fat," was another insult slung at her back, though usually only by those who did not know her—those who did knew better. While that one didn't deflate her as completely as the other insults, it bit her on a more personal level. Not only was she a bad shinobi, but she was a bad person, for every time she got panicked or stressed, she ate. Unfortunately, being of Akimichi blood, this meant she was not lithe and toned like the other kunoichi in her class. No, Nora Akimichi was tall, but stocky, with square-like features, wide hands and feet, and nothing "delicate" about her.

She hated life some days.

They practiced hand-to-hand combat today. She had been put up against the two girls she hated most to fight: Aburame Teulah and Nara Shikabi. She hated fighting Teulah for fairly obvious reasons—Teulah was extraordinarily fast and had creepy bugs on her side, as well as a dog. She was also a bit…violent.

Shikabi was another matter altogether, though. There was no one on earth Nora hated sparring more than Shikabi. She was older than Shikabi, bigger than Shikabi, and by all rights she _should_ be able to pound Shikabi into the ground. But she can't. Shikabi usually has her beaten before either of them even move—whether with a shadow jutsu or just by looking at the larger girl evenly. She is smarter, faster, and overall better. Nora can't stand it.

Once upon a time, they were very close. Shikabi was mute, more or less, and would follow the larger Nora around like a shadow. Nora _liked_ Shikabi then, because the smaller girl relied on her, needed her to serve as a buffer between her and the world.

"_Hey, mute! Why don't you say something, huh? Huh?"_ _They push back and forth, back and forth, and the little dark one is wide eyed with fright. Nora steps in the way, grabbing the offending hands and twisting them at the wrists. The boy howls in pain. His friend shoves Shikabi away and the little girl falls. Nora pushes her victim into his friend and waltzes by them with a nine year old's grace, ignoring the angry glares and muttered curses. She looms over her friend, smiling, and holds out a hand._

"_Alright, 'Kabi?"_

Now, though, Shikabi was still mostly mute, but it didn't matter. She commanded with her silence, and her intelligence made her formidable in pretty much all training arenas. She did not need Nora anymore. If anything, Nora needed her.

Nora collapsed on the grass and rolled over to stare at the sky, angrily blinking back her tears. She had lost. Again. Teulah had given her a sound thrashing and Shikabi had caught her almost instantly in a Shadow Mimic technique, forcing her to forfeit. Nora had fled before the whispers and snickers could reach her ears.

Now, she pulled out the candy bar she stashed in her backpack and ate it without tasting it. She grabbed another, feeling the angry helplessness dull only slightly with the presence of food to occupy her brain. Still, guilt gnawed at her. She should not be this weak. Her stomach rolled, as if in agreement, and suddenly the presence of the candy bar made her feel sick. She gagged, tossing the candy away from her, and put her head between her knees.

"Damn, damn, _damn_," she hissed, rubbing her tearing eyes furiously. "Could you _be_ any stupider, Akimichi? Huh? Could you be any more _pathetic_? Ugh!"

There was a soft thump beside her, and Nora stiffened. A glance out of the corner of one tear-filled eye confirmed her suspicion and she stifled a groan. Shikabi glanced at her briefly, then gazed back up at the sky.

"What do you want?" Nora asked dully, looking back at the ground again. Silence.

"Look, I want to be alone, 'Kabi," it came out harder than she had intended, but Nora did _not_ want to deal with guessing what was going through the girl's smart little mind.

Of course, Shikabi didn't move. Nora sighed.

"Fine, _I'll_ move," she rolled to her feet and grabbed her backpack, only to find one of the straps tightly fisted in Shikabi's hand. Nora glared. Shikabi stared silently back.

And just like that, Nora snapped.

"What the _hell_, Nara!" She screeched, throwing the backpack aside and successfully ripping it from Shikabi's tight grip. "Can't you just _leave me alone_? You won, okay? _You won_. Now go away! There's nothing more you can do to me, alright? You won, I lost. You're brilliant, I'm stupid. Everyone loves you because you're _so_ smart and _so_ good at being a shinobi that it just makes me _sick_. Now _leave—me—alone!_" She stood over the dark-haired girl, hands fisted and face red, breathing heavily. Shikabi leaned back on her elbows, still silent, and looked up at her, completely unfazed. Nora sighed, deflated, and grabbed her backpack again, rummaging through it for another candy bar. Fatness be damned, she was past caring.

"You need to stop playing their game."

Nora froze, mid-rummage, and looked up. Shikabi was staring at the sky, a lazy half-smile on her face.

"Excuse me?"

"I used to be afraid of them too," Shikabi continued as if she hadn't heard. She never repeated herself. "When we were little, everyone was so big and loud, that I was terrified almost constantly. You and Chouzi were my shields—especially you, because you were bigger than everyone else, but you were never loud to me. I was scared too, at first. Teulah is crazy and Nariko…Nariko is just _fast_. I thought I had to be crazy and fast, too, to get stronger," she shrugged. "Then I stopped playing their game, and played my own. It works."

Nora stared, but Shikabi didn't say another word, choosing instead to close her eyes and stretch out more fully, looking very much like a contented cat.

"Is--is that—is that what I'm doing?" Nora stuttered out finally. Shikabi opened one eye and looked at her as if to say _what do __**you**__ think?_

Nora thought. The kunoichi she strived to be was beautiful, graceful, light, fast, and cunning. The traditional kunoichi.

She could not be the traditional kunoichi, for she was none of those things. But, the more Nora thought about it, the more she realized that none of her classmates fit the bill entirely, either. Nariko was beautiful, and scarily fast, but she was not light. All the splintered wood at the Academy was testament to that fact. Teulah was smart, and quick on her feet, but she was easily distracted and tended to explode in a fury if she got too wound up. As for Shikabi… Shikabi was a genius, as graceful as a dancer and as fast as a cheetah…but she had no cunning. She did not talk, so her face talked for her. She could not really hide anything.

Yet all three of them—her friends, her rivals—were turning into excellent kunoichi.

Nora sat back on her heels and took stock of her training, frowning. She could not think tactically like Shikabi, no, but she had good foresight and had a practically photographic memory--a useful talent for gathering information. She was not fast at all, but her large frame made it difficult to move her. She was not light or graceful, but she _did_ have the strongest punch in her class. It was a punch that made Kento—the taijutsu master of their year—whistle with admiration and ask her never to direct it at him. While she could never dance around an opponent and disarm them with speed and grace, she could probably stop one directly in its tracks with one, good rib-shattering hit.

Nora brought up her head. That was it.

"I need to be direct."

Shikabi opened one eye. Nora was sitting up straight, her face scrunched up in thought.

"That's it, isn't it?" The larger girl asked. "I'm trying too hard to be like you and the others. I'm not working with my own strengths. My strength lies in direct opposition, not maneuvering around the opponent. I have to go straight through them. That's it, isn't it?"

Shikabi just smiled, shrugged, and said "we have more sparring tomorrow."

The next day, she faced Shikabi in the ring. They stared at each other, the few feet between them yawning like a chasm. Days ago, she would have been terrified, already convinced she would lose to Shikabi's superior intellect. Now, though, it was different. She did not think about superiority, inferiority, or anything of the like. Nora blocked out the world around her, and focused all her attention on one spot before her—the invisible target she had drawn right over Shikabi's solar plexus. When Lee-sensei called "begin", she swung.

By the time Shikabi had finished her hand seals, she was already lying flat on her back at the edge of the ring. She looked up at the sky and smiled. The sky was blue, the clouds were fluffy, the sun was shining, and she had found her best friend once again. The Nora she knew—the Nora of days long gone, who was confident, fearless, and above all _strong_—had finally returned. Life was good.

Her view was blotted out by someone standing over her, extending a hand to help her up.

"Alright, 'Kabi?"

She took the hand, so much larger than her own, and let herself be dragged to her feet. She followed Nora out of the ring as the next pair of fighters were called in and noted that she was quite comfortable lingering in Nora's shadow. Her friend did not know it yet, but she was the strongest of the kunoichi. Shikabi decided she would be looking forward to sparring classes forever after.


	12. Family is the Synonym for Love

Disclaimer: Blacknbluesiren does not own Naruto. The characters are being used purely for entertainment purposes and I am not making any money off it.

AN: don't faint--I updated again.

I am actually finally writing about NARUTO! Exciting, no? I had a lot of people going "but where is Naruto in all this? You've covered everyone but him!" And I had. I avoided doing naruto until now because, honestly, of all the characters in the show, Naruto is the most complex. I wanted to do justice to his character, not stereotype him. In the end, I decided that Naruto, rather than being like all his friends (parents of crazy children, that is :P) I realized he would always be different, but still integral to the family dynamic of the Konoha nin. He is family to them all, and loves them all like a father (or doting uncle :)) would. I wanted to give him the same big heart that I see in the show--the heart of someone who saw the whole village as his family, and all the kids as his children. It is a heart fitting for a Hokage, in my opinion :). So there it is, my very best attempt at writing out one of the show's most complex and loved characters. I hope I did him justice.

The Synonym for Family is Love

_What was the first thing you desired most in the world?_

If you asked Naruto this question, he would say what he always said: he wanted to be Hokage. Not just any Hokage, but THE Hokage, the best Hokage Konoha had ever seen.

However, if you got him to slow down enough to _think_, really _think_ about the question, he would respond differently.

The first thing Naruto ever desired in his life was a family.

It was understandable, really. The infant without a mother to hold him, the toddler without a father to play with him, the child who had no siblings to defend him from the cruelty of others, wanted a family so desperately it made it hard to breathe. A family, a real one to call his own, was the very first thing Naruto ever, _ever_ wanted.

He had grown now, mature in mind even if he still behaved like an adolescent, and he knew that he got that first desire. He had a family. It wasn't a very orthodox family, as they were all from different clans and different backgrounds, but they were his family, and he loved them fiercely.

He once heard the Sandaime Hokage describe all of Konoha as his family, and Naruto figured that was probably what made the Sandaime such a great Hokage. He saw all of the village as people to be loved and cared about, because they were not just citizens, but siblings. Cousins. Aunts. Uncles.

Naruto thinks he feels the same way.

It was still very early—that much was apparent by the dove gray of the sky, and the fact that his alarm was not set to go off for another three hours—but Naruto found himself sitting on his windowsill, looking out over Konoha while it still slept. Early morning was always his favorite time, though he often slept through it. It was his time to quietly watch the village that he would one day protect as Hokage. His gaze swept over the sleeping houses, when a flicker of movement caught his eye. He trained his gaze on one of the rooftops, and a smile flickered across his face.

Akimichi Nora was standing over something on the roof, her arms crossed and a look of fond exasperation on her pretty, round face. Her red gold ponytail glinted in the early morning light, and Naruto could see her teeth flash every so often as she spoke quietly with…whoever was lying on the roof. Naruto would bet money he knew who it was. The figure sat, up, shaking dark hair out of a pale face, and Naruto grinned, his suspicions confirmed. He got to his feet and leaped lightly over the rooftops, until he made it to his destination.

"Did you hide out here all night again, 'Kabi?"

The Nara girl, as prone to staring at the sky as her father, rolled her eyes and flopped back on the quilt she had been lying on all night. She yawned theatrically and rolled herself up, tortilla-style, clearly intending to go back to sleep.



"Oh no you don't," Nora grumbled, grabbing the blanket's edge and pulling. "You—urgh—have to come--stupid blanket—_home_. We have—gah—school! Uncle Naruto, _help_ me!"

Naruto chuckled quietly, bent down, and slung the bundle over his shoulder, earning a rare, muffled yelp of surprise from the child inside. Nora sighed, smiled, and followed him off the roof.

"Thanks, Uncle Naruto."

They hurried through the quiet streets, Nora skipping ahead gaily and Naruto following with Shikabi on his shoulders, where she had taken up residence once she had freed herself from her blanket prison. As they walked, Naruto thought about what Nora had so fondly called him.

_Uncle Naruto_.

That was his general title with all of them. From the time they could walk, most of the children of Konoha called him "Uncle", and treated him as such. He knew his reputation with them: Uncle Naruto was the one you went to when you needed extra help with training (especially replication techniques, which everyone needed to know to pass the genin exam), if you needed someone to give you advice that your parents _wouldn't_ give, or if you just needed someone to talk to; because no one else understood the holes in the heart left by fights with friends or deaths better than Uncle Naruto.

It was a pretty tall order, but Naruto was having a grand time making sure he lived up to it. He really wasn't sure what was funnier: that these children really thought so highly of him, or that their parents _let_ them not just think, but act upon those thoughts. It was bizarre, really.

They reached the Nara and Akimichi shared household, and Naruto set Shikabi on the ground. The girl turned to him with a smile, patted his cheek fondly, and darted inside. Nora rolled her eyes at her friend, gave Naruto a cheery thumbs-up and said, "thanks again, Uncle Naruto. Is it okay if I stop by after Academy to work on some sparring with you?" Her face crumpled slightly. "I lost again yesterday."

Naruto sighed and braced his hands behind his head.

"Did you start retreating again?" Nora was notoriously gun-shy, and had a problem with hand-to-hand fighting. Nora scrunched up her nose and nodded.

"I tried not to, but you know Nariko—she's terrifying!! She moves so quickly and she NEVER misses!"

"Ah, so she outmaneuvered you," Naruto nodded sagely and put an arm around the stocky girl. "Let me tell you something, Nora. Hyuugas are fast—it's what their techniques are based on, speed—and even though Nariko isn't the fastest in her clan, she's speedy compared to the rest of you, and she is _very_ efficient. But!" Naruto winked at her and leaned in conspiratorially, "Nariko is _not _invincible. The trick to beating a fast-mover is to land one, good, _powerful_ hit on them. Stop them in their tracks. You have the hardest damn punch of any nin in your class, you just have to get up the guts to land it. You remember what happened the last time you used those fists of yours in a sparring match?"

Nora grinned widely at him. She had knocked Kento clear across the sparring ring. It was a major feat, especially considering he was a power-hitter like herself, but was _also_ blindingly fast. Naruto grinned back at her and tugged on her ponytail.

"Come on by after Academy. We'll see what we can do."

She threw her arms around him, practically crushing his ribcage, and then bounded up the stairs and into the house. Naruto chuckled and turned to go, but instead found himself face-to-chest-plate with Nora's father. Naruto craned his head up to look at the Akimichi man and saluted casually.

"Hi Chouji."

"Hey, Naruto!" As always, Chouji gave him a warm smile and a one-armed hug. "By some chance are you here because you found my wayward daughter and the stargazer?"

"Yep," Naruto jerked his thumb towards the house. "They just went inside. I think Shikabi picks a different roof each night, to see if Nora can track her. They were right outside my building."

"Ah, I hope they didn't wake you up."

"Nah."

Chouji nodded, and then gestured to the house with a fond smile.

"By the way, thanks for helping Nora with her sparring. Her confidence has really improved, and Chouzi says the others aren't making much fun of her anymore." The two men shared dark looks—they both knew how vicious children could be to each other.

"Tell her to just sock the next kid who makes fun of her," Naruto said with a wry smile. "That'll shut them up."

"Apparently, she already did that," Chouji was smiling again. "Only they weren't mocking her."

Naruto straightened slightly.

"God damn, they didn't--"

"Yep. You'd think by now people would know better than to tease her, but because she doesn't speak much, she's a bit of a target."

"So Nora clocked them?"

"That she did. You don't push Shikabi around when Nora is in earshot—it's her one rule, I think," Chouji said proudly. Naruto grinned.

"Good for her. Now if she could just put that in the sparring ring!" Naruto shook his head and waved to Chouji. "I'll talk to you later, Chou. Say hi to Ino and Shikamaru for me, will ya?"

"Will do. Bye, Naruto."

As he wandered back to his apartment, Naruto looked around his awakening village, and felt warmth suffuse his being as he did. Everywhere he looked, he saw faces smiling, voices greeting each other. He saw Iori, Tenten's boy, darting through the throngs of people, heading to Academy. He waved at Naruto as he passed, shooting him a grin. Hot on his trail was Rock Kento and the speed demon herself. Nariko had clearly given up on getting through the streets and was now leaping from roof to stall roof, her little feet barely touching the tin and wood.

"Hi Uncle Naruto!" She sang as she sailed over his head. "Iori, get back here!"

Naruto shook his head and shaded his eyes to watch her progress. As he did, he saw three more figures, walking at a more sedate pace, along the rooftops while two smaller figures—puppies, if the sound of barking was any indication—bounced around them. He raised a hand in greeting and the three—Tory, Teulah, and Hiro if his vision served him correctly—waved energetically back.

"Uncle Naruto Sensei!" Teulah shouted, and Naruto rolled his eyes at the combined title and term of endearment, "do we have training after Academy today? Because if we do, Tory an' I are going to be late! We have to take the pups to the vet!" Tory, standing next to his pseudo-sibling, cringed away from her volume. Hiro just laughed.

Naruto laughed too, quietly to himself, but as their team leader, he felt obligated to give them a hard time.

"One hundred laps around the village for every hour you two are late!" He bellowed back, biting his tongue against mirth as the Inuzuka and the Aburame shared petrified looks. "So make it a snappy appointment, you two!"

"Yes sir!" Ah, they looked positively gray in the face now. His duty had been fulfilled. He winked at Hiro, knowing the all-seeing Hyuuga eyes would catch his joke—he had no intention of doing that to either of his students-- and the boy covered his mouth to hide his smile. Naruto watched as they hurried on to Academy and finally laughed aloud.

"Something funny, Naruto?" He turned and grinned at Tsunade, bracing his hands against his head as he fell in step with the Fifth Hokage.

"Eh, Tsunade-baa, I'm just in a good mood today," his eyes twinkled. "Terrifying my students and all—Kakaishi-sensei taught me well!"

The woman looked at him with knowing eyes and smiled a smile that looked far too old on her forever-young face.

"You're happy, Naruto. I'm glad. You, of all people in this village, deserve it."

Naruto's step faltered a moment, before resuming with the same levity as he absorbed his leader's words. He had a family—a giant, village-sized family—and he could say with confidence that never in his life had he been so happy.

"But what is this about you terrifying your students?"

He glanced at Tsunade, caught her amused smirk, the laughter in her eyes, and laughed aloud for the second time that day.

He had a family, people who looked up to him, trusted him, admired him. Loved him.

Life was good.


End file.
